


The Kaleidoscope Affair

by FuwaFuwaMedb



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuwaFuwaMedb/pseuds/FuwaFuwaMedb
Summary: From the depths of the darkness he had climbed out, more powerful and threatening than anything they could have imagined. Nothing like the blue suited Celt that they had gotten to know and fight against. The teasing air about the man was gone, the light gone from his eyes. Instead, there was only death. Death and all his friends, awaiting the long lines of those who got in their way.Her magic had gone terribly wrong, Rin realized. This wasn't the lancer she had met before.





	1. From The Depths of Hell

Contained within fifty two feet’s length and seventy four feet’s width of space, there was open floor surrounded by dark muck.  
  
The area beyond the smoke and muck was impossible to see or imagine.  
  
The floor to which he was existing upon was nothing special either.  
  
He was simply a lost figure.  
  
Cast aside by religions and their deities.  
  
Laying in the middle of the floor, he counted the fingers of dark skies that were above his head, revealed from the reprieve that his space gave the heavens.  
  
Eighty four fingers’ worth of length.  
  
Once he had thought about wandering away from this hallowed ground, trying to find the other servants perhaps or escape this hell hole. He had considered himself cursed for another unknown length of time. His lips had formed the prayers of the peoples he had seen when the ground swallowed him into another war.  
  
At least here, where the darkness enclosed him and kept him contained, he could remember his place. He could remember who and what he was.  
  
When the ground swallowed him away, only part of his mind was there. Sometimes, he could remember nothing more than his runes and magic. Other times, he could mostly remember how to fight with his lance. One time, one that was on the very fringe of his memory, he recalled being summoned far too close to the muck. Something had happened, like the mana from the muck had combined too closely with him. The darker part of his thoughts had come loose.  
  
That was all he could recall of that time.  
  
At this point, it was foolish to think about the what ifs and the effects of the wars on the people he had seen. Even more so, it was too much to consider the people that had come to pass in general. Their faces were cast aside, forgotten through hours of purposeful non-thinking.  
  
Or that was what was normal for him.  
  
This last summoning, to the priest in the church, had not turned out that way. His mind churned with the faces and the names. His thoughts ran through the scenarios and the what ifs as though nothing else mattered but what their fates were. Like background noise, he tried his damnedest to ignore what he had seen and focus on his counting and measuring.  
  
One foot before another, he measured the floor space he was given. He laid onto his back and put one finger in front of another, trying his methodical practice of counting the heavens that were clear to him.  
  
The image in his mind didn’t vanish.  
  
The woman was still tied to the chair.  
  
She was still being threatened and abused by that worthless piece of shit.  
  
There was still someone nearby, threatening to use her body for their own ends.  
  
Crystal blue eyes looked at him, searing his soul worse than any forge’s metalwork. Dark hair tumbled down her shoulders, just hiding enough of her face that his arms itched at his sides, longing to touch something that no longer existed to him.  
  
As far as time was concerned, she was dust and fragments of nothing. She was long buried and lost to him.  
  
Yet the name resounded in his head, echoed in the boy’s voice that chased and ghosted her every step. Her name was a growl and a murmur in the voice of the red archer’s inflection. The more he pushed against who and what she was, the louder her name reverberated back to him. Her lips moved in his mind, beckoning him in. Elegance personified, untouchable yet so close. Her name undressed her before him, turned her visage towards him.  
  
It was useless, after a time, to think of anything other than her in the madness of his prison.  
  
Within fifty two feet’s length and seventy four feet’s width of space, his thoughts drifted with a maddening swiftness back to her image and her being. He could only see those eyes when he opened his, after a time. He could only imagine her touch and her warmth against him as he lay in the midst of his space.  
  
His fingers slid across the ground of his prison, imagining the smooth, clear expanse of skin that would make up her back. The darkness of the skies receded in his mind’s eye, letting him see the deep azure. Her eyes looked down upon him and he was enjoying being their sole focus.  
  
The nothingness had been replaced with purpose.  
  
He could recall on one hand the number of times a woman had stolen away a piece of him. Of those times, none had been able to keep the piece they took away. They unknowingly returned the piece back with their actions or words, allowing him to move along and cast aside any interest. Not her though.  
  
Immortalized in his hell, she became a sort of peace. Time and space swept away, there was only himself and his personal goddess to think about.  
  
Ah- but he had never had such luck with women. Even thinking of his mentor had only brought him half the peace that the woman in his mind’s eye brought him. Perhaps it was because he had held his mentor close and had the time with her. Rin was elusive, untouchable.  
  
He would bring harm to anyone that tried to taint such a light.  
  
Perhaps time passed. He would never know for sure. All he could think was that his mind soon drifted to the possibilities, the impossibilities. As he ran a hand along his lance, practicing fighting in his small confines, his mind ran over what he would do with the woman at his side.  
  
In his time, she would remain safe and secured away. Secluded from his enemies, she would be adorned in his victorious hunts’ furs. She would be revered and envied by even the Queen Medb for having his attentions and loyal soul. His father, Fergus, would be the first to admire her for what she was capable of-  
  
But that would be a boring life for her.  
  
He chuckled as he thought of her flushed face as she argued with him for her freedom. Wild and untamable as a wolf in the wilderness, she would never settle for being coveted away like a precious treasure. She would roam freely over the greenery and the harshest of winters.  
  
Rather than be gathered up in furs and huddled at a hearth, she would break loose, adorning her body with his fur skins and fighting alongside him. He could imagine that a good number of the furs they would amass would be from her successes.  
  
Somehow, the idea of her standing her own at his side appealed even more to him.  
  
Strong women were something to be celebrated that was for sure.  
  
The ground beneath him darkened, the smooth surface beginning to break and crack with deep fissures. Glancing down, Cu Chulainn sighed.  
  
The time had come already. Just as he was beginning to dare his mind to imagine the woman beneath him, divested of her attire and inhibitions.  
  
Fate would not provide him the reprieve to even dwell upon a woman for long. The jealous woman that was fate coveted him like no other, tearing any interest from his heart and soul before he could make his dreams a reality.  
  
The deep cracks along the floor broke away, falling into the nothingness beneath his prison. His feet began to slip, his body cast downwards into the bleak abyss. His eyes closed as he allowed himself to be taken.  
  
Further and further into the depths of it all, he fell.  
  
Until the ground slammed harshly against his legs.  
  
The air around him was thick with a chill and dampness. The room, pitch black and impossible to see around, was silent.  
  
It was tempting to call out to his new master, but the usual ties that he felt were missing. Something about this summoning was different, wrong.  
  
He stood up, looking around carefully.  
  
He still felt it all. For once, his mind had not been restricted to a class of servant. He felt the same dark thoughts plaguing his mind as he had the one time he had been summoned long ago. He still recalled the vast knowledge of runes and spells from the times he had been summoned as a caster.  
  
He still remembered her in her entirety.  
  
Something struck against a rough surface, bringing light to the room. A small flame flickered over a pale visage just in his peripheral vision.  
  
“Give me a moment, Lancer.”  
  
That voice.  
  
It rang with the same amount of elegance and authority that it had before. With its command, every cell and fiber of his body became alive and wild. His mind chased around the concept, the very idea of his fantasies coming to fruition.  
  
Rin Tohsaka was lighting a candelabra on the side of the room. Her short skirts sweeping gently over her thighs as she leaned over the desk to relight the candles. The expanse of skin shown went over like a cold shower, far more revealing than his mind was prepared for. She moved carefully, lighting the rest of the room’s candles.  
  
“You summoned me?”  
  
His voice was thicker than it should have been, his mouth was surprisingly dry as he tried to think through the worshipful mindset he had acquired for the woman. Doing anything more than staring was a herculean task, treading on dangerous. His body was still working to function at any capacity.  
  
“You would never believe the amount of work that it took to manage this.” She shook her head, turning away once more. “I didn’t have a catalyst this time around, so finding a way to summon any servant, even as a familiar alone, was more work than summoning a servant for the Holy Grail War.”  
  
His lance was more support for keeping himself on his feet as she turned to him and smiled.  
  
“I did it though! Welcome back, Lancer.”  
  
“A familiar?”  
  
Rin blinked a moment before pushing her hair back, giving herself a distraction from simply answering the question. “It’s more like you were summoned to work for me rather than fight a war. I imagine it might not be what you were expecting, since you normally are summoned in a cyclical manner for fighting and then returning to…” She waved a hand, her brows furrowing as she continued to think. “Well- I don’t actually know where you return to, but with this summoning, you won’t really have a going back to that place. At least, not for a long time.”  
  
Moving was slow and methodical. With her eyes watching him, Cu Chulainn moved around the desk nearby and pushed a collection of books off the seat. Sitting- the process of which required something real and solid beneath his fingers and his body- just made his head spiral further.  
  
“Lancer?” Rin hurried towards him, but he held up a hand, needing time.  
  
Senses splayed out across all his capabilities, he took in it all. Clean yet musky air filling his lungs. Hard and uncomfortable wood underneath his body, holding him upright. His hands skimmed across the deep wood table, glossed to shine yet stained with what looked to be the handiwork of countless mana attempts. The burned and charred parts of the wood finish were rough under his fingertips as he ran his hand over the table.  
  
“…Did I mess up?”  
  
The goddess, for lack of better word, hovered around him. Her body dancing on her toes as she looked at him with an open expression. Those twin tails of hers bounced with her movements, beckoning. He could only turn his attentions from the desk to her as she tormented him with her reality.  
  
“I don’t get it. I did everything right. It’s two am. I’m at my peak in mana. I drew the runes exactly like I found them when I was researching. I crossed referenced them with the books I looked into when I was at school and from the libraries in the area.”  
  
Her skirts swished as she began to move back and forth in front of him.  
  
“…There’s a chance that I could have been mistaken on one or two things, but honestly, the lore for those symbols only goes as far back as the Ulster Cycle. It wouldn’t be recorded anywhere if they were older than that. The original circle that I had down here was scrubbed and carefully removed as well. There’s no chance of the original circle getting in the way of this one. Perhaps the grail…” She paused a moment before shaking her head and resuming her pacing, “but that wouldn’t make sense. Again, it’s destroyed-“  
  
Her face coasted too close to his range of reach. Without thinking, he pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her and listening to the small squeak that escaped her lips. He wrapped himself around her, forcing her to curl up in a ball to remain comfortable. Her body was so light weight, thin… He could just hold her in his arms and carry her around if he so chose.  
  
And what’s more, with her in his arms, her face began to turn pink. Her lips parted, but for a moment, there was nothing that escaped them.  
  
“Er… Lancer?”  
  
Imagination and opportunity but more than a thousand years could not coalesce to bring to mind the feeling of velvet and smoothness that her skin felt against his touch. Where all he had smelled in his lifetimes of life was the smell of copper and smoke, the woman in his arms smelled of earth and warmth. The smell reminded him of life: liquors and spiced wines from travels and noble courts, seductive women, humid nights under the stars.  
  
“Lancer, I can’t move with you holding me like this.”  
  
The light tone of her voice and the smell of her hair… He lost himself in the moment, letting it all sink in. Perhaps it was nothing more than insanity brought about by his thoughts or a fleeting war time, but for now: he could feel her in his arms, she was a quandary of thoughts and feelings beyond his thinking, and her hands and legs were cold.  
  
At the feeling of those cold hands, Cu wrapped his hands around hers, giving her what warmth he could.  
  
“Y-you could say something at least.” She argued, looking up at him with those same blue eyes that had lit up his dark skies.  
  
Saying something meant having something to say. He wasn’t sure where or how to speak to her at the moment. He could ask questions, but the questions he had already asked had left him more puzzled than before. He could tell her his thoughts, but somehow, he couldn’t imagine she would take his true thoughts well.  
  
“You’re cold.”  
  
More of an observation, but she had summoned him and was his master in that regard. She was ultimately his responsibility.  
  
“Of course I’m cold. I’ve been down here half the night!”  
  
He lifted her up, making her statement half panicked as he carried her towards the stairs. Gae Bolg was twirled onto his shoulder, the butt of the lance used to push the door to the upstairs open so they could pass through.  
  
Those lovely arms, once so eager to cast spells at him and prepared to fight him, wrapped around his shoulders as she eyed the ground.  
  
The house was a mass of rich colors. Deep, dark mahogany colors adorned the walls, carved with different protection symbols and craftwork. The walls, patterned wallpapers of gold and crimsons with furniture colored in thick creams and deep navy, reflected the same decadence that he had come to imagine the woman enjoying.  
  
“Put me down! I need to find out what’s wrong with you!”  
  
He set her on the stairs, letting her remain at eye level with him. The woman looked to be exactly where she was supposed to be, wrapped up in her own home.  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he told her simply as the woman was half wrapped around the banister at the bottom of the stairs.  
  
“You’re not quite the same as before.”  
  
He was, but he wasn’t sure how to tell her that he was different in that he felt complete, like the whole of himself was here. He didn’t trust admitting that to anyone or to the very air itself.  
  
“I just got summoned to a place where no war is being held. How did you expect me to respond?”  
  
The words were a bit harsher than intended, but there was a point to that. He wasn’t with purpose for once. Another life had never been his intent. At least with the wars, there was a point. He fought, he died, he returned to his confines until the next war. Then again, fight, possibly win, return to confines. The cycle had continued until there was no hope.  
  
Being given reprieve, life anew…  
  
What was he supposed to do?  
  
“I did bring you back for a reason.” Rin told him, crossing her arms and moving up a step so she could look down at him. The height difference meant nothing. “There’s another lancer that has been summoned and roaming Fuyuki. They’re stalking Saber and I need someone who thinks like a lancer and could compete with their skill.”  
  
Compete. The woman insulted him.  
  
Cu Chulainn shook his head, moving to a couch nearby to get some distance. He needed distance. Breathing space. His mind and body were itching for the same thing and he was getting to the edges of his rationale. Not that there had been much rationale to begin with.  
  
“Lancer,” she kept her gaze trained on him, either naïve to the meaning behind his watching her or uncaring. Her hands remained wrapped around the bannister even as she inched to the step down. “I may not have command seals, but I can send you back. I can try to summon someone else, but a lancer against another lancer means that you’ll know what kind of moves they’re capable of. You’ll know more about being able to stop them from getting into the house and into Shirou’s.”  
  
He leaned back against the back of the seating, closing his eyes as he took in the sound of her voice.  
  
“Lancer.”  
  
That wasn’t the name he wanted to hear from her lips. He needed to bear in mind that his interests were not to be fulfilled. He needed to keep in mind she was not his.  
  
There she was though, moving across the room to him, light on her feet the entire way. He couldn’t do anything other than feel her hands against one of his arms. He had hardly heard her move. And now, with her touching him…  
  
“I must have messed up the summoning somehow or wherever you end up after the wars is just that exhausting.”  
  
He could have laughed had it been anyone else saying such a thing.  
  
“Let me get some tea started and I’ll make sure to prepare a room for you.”  
  
The cold hands moved off his, her body beginning to leave him.  
  
Once again, he was acting without reason, grabbing her hand to keep her in place. Those eyes looked down at him and he drowned in them. He moved the distance between them, his other hand wrapping around the back of her neck.  
  
He stopped himself- just short.  
  
Rin’s eyes were the the size of saucers as she stared at him. Her eyes drifted over his face, trying to piece together what was happening. As he remained frozen, her cheeks pinkened. Her hands twitched, wanting to move away yet remaining in his firm grip.  
  
“…wh-what are you doing?”  
  
A wonderful question. What on earth was he doing?  
  
A darker part of him was tempted to have her try to figure it out as he went ahead with the thoughts in his mind. He could already imagine once more seeing her body underneath his, her skin flushed from wanton and wild abandon. A whisper ghosted through him that at this moment, he could negotiate that kind of thing. It would be as simple as closing the rest of the distance.  
  
“Lancer…”  
  
Her voice was so soft. Gods, had it always been so soft?  
  
“You’re right about me.” He pulled himself back again, clinging to the last pieces of his chivalry. “I’m not quite all together yet. I have no intention of being by myself for the moment though. How long has it been since the grail war?”  
  
“It’s been a year.”  
  
A year. In that time, the woman before him had grown softer and sweeter looking. Her hair had lengthened a bit, beckoning him something fierce. Her eyes had grown more determined and clear.  
  
Her hand dropped from his, falling loosely to her side as she looked between him and the doorway to another room. Her lower lip slipped into her mouth as she took a moment to think. It returned to view in a deeper rose color.  
  
Gods, he needed a good beer. Something stronger than her tea.  
  
“Why don’t you come with me then? I’ll make you something to drink and we can talk.”  
  
“I won’t be much to talk with.”  
  
“That’s alright. Listen then. I’m sure you’re curious about what happened after you were killed in the war.”  
  
He couldn’t care less, but he let her direct him through the room and into a room of marble counters and stainless steel. The room gleamed around him: new, open, refined. Everything screamed of his ill placement. Gae Bolg went against the wall as he settled into one of the stools on the other side of the counter and watched as she began to pull containers out and place a kettle under the kitchen faucet.  
  
“We destroyed the grail,” she began, speaking over the water pouring into the kettle. “It was a trying thing, but Shirou managed to stop Gilgamesh and I managed to rescue the mage they were using as a vessel. After that, when Saber was going to disappear, I managed to stop her disappearing by making her my familiar.”  
  
The sink was turned off as she returned the kettle to the cooking top and flipped a switch, letting a small blaze begin under the thing. Her movements were second nature, more habit than practice at this point. Tea was most likely the most consumed drink in this household.  
  
“I had her for a couple months, but ultimately Shirou and Saber wanted to live together so I gave Saber to Shirou. They visit, but it wasn’t often until recently.”  
  
She scooped pieces of herb into the metal strainer at the top of the tea set, reattaching it to the lid before she looked over at him.  
  
“Saber found that someone had been snooping around Shirou’s home for a while and I found that someone had broken into my home and stolen the notes I had taken on familiars. With that information, they could summon as many servants as they have mages. If a group or organization has that kind of information with them, we could be looking at a war of a different kind.”  
  
“So you think the lancer might have this information?”  
  
“We’ve seen him in the house. I had to redo all of the protections around the property after he got in last time. That was two days ago.”  
  
“Do you have an idea of who they might be?”  
  
She shook her head, turning away as the kettle began to squeal. Once more, he was subjected to watching her turn away from him, her sweater hitching up her back a little to showcase a small crevice of pale skin as she reached above the stovetop for an oven mitt.  
  
That red archer must have rearranged the house or something. There was no way that the girl living on her own had decided to put something there. Someone had thought of that space with ulterior motives in mind.  
  
She poured what she had into the strainer in the teapot, returning the mitt and the kettle before she began to reach up again for mugs. It was too much. Her sweater inched a smidgen higher, drawing his eyes…  
  
His hand pressed against her back as he was out of his seat and around the counter. His touched eased her off the balls of her feet, eyes drifting to him.  
  
“I’ll get the cups.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Inclining his head, he pulled down cups down and earned himself a small kiss on the cheek as he handed them to her.  
  
His vision blurred as he found himself incapable of moving. His mind was currently cursing the blue fighting suit that had him packed tight. If she glanced down or he moved, the issue at hand would be more than obvious.  
  
Rin, in true oblivion, turned away and continued speaking as she rummaged for something to go with the tea.  
  
“I have been researching, but the issue at hand is that I just know they wooed over my maid I’d hired for the house and they made off with last minute notes. Nothing too concrete. I was careful to tuck away anything of real value after the first theft, but still…” She glanced at him. “I would like to know who they are, how they got in, and where my notes are. That’ll be your mission. After that…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what you would want, but I’m open for helping you set up your own home and live however you’d like.”  
  
Methodically, carefully, he moved to sit back on the stool behind the counter, accepting a cup of tea as she poured one for them both.  
  
The herb taste left a lack of bite that liquor would have given, but he sipped the boiling liquid welcomingly. Anything to remove his mind from its current trail of thought.  
  
His mouth burned viciously from the drink.  
  
Rin moved to sit next to him. “I’ll be able to supply you with a good amount of mana from this point onwards. We’ll work together on-“  
  
“Rin.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
Cu Chulainn looked over at her, taking in the open eyes and straight expression. “You’re testing my chivalry being this close.”  
  
“Your chivalry?”  
  
He resumed his tea drinking, imagining himself with something harsher.  
  
“Lancer, that has to be boiling still. I don’t understand how you can drink that.”  
  
“I need the bite.”  
  
“I see…” She hummed, turning the mug in her hands a moment before her eyes drifted up to meet his gaze once more. “Did I offend you somehow?”  
  
He moved his head once in negation, taking another sip.  
  
“Right…” Her gaze was looking him over a moment before she leaned a little closer. “Are you hurt? Is there something wrong from the summoning?”  
  
“Your lancer,” he avoided the questions as he moved the stool further away. “Any other information from the maid? Appearance? Voice?”  
  
“He was handsome, that was all I got.” Rin frowned at him, but her attention returned reluctantly to her tea. She took a tentative sip before shaking her head. “I tried asking about eye colors. Facial features. What hair color they had. Was their hair long or short? Were they tall? Short? Fat? I got nothing out of the woman. She just went on and on that he was chivalrous and handsome.”  
  
The tea was gone too soon, but he didn’t bother with another cup. Another cup meant longer time in close quarters. He respected the woman far too much to bother keeping close quarters. He moved to set the mug in the sink before picking up and twirling Gae Bolg in hand.  
  
“I’ll go survey the perimeter. If there’s any sign of them, then at least we will have an idea.”  
  
Rin nodded.  
  
“As for compensation, there’s no need. Just send me back when we’re done. A dead man has no reason for living.”


	2. It Started With A Kiss

A dead man has no reason for living.  
  
She couldn’t quite fathom the comment. For someone who looked like he was longing for something every time he looked her way, she couldn’t understand what would make him say that. It was hard to miss his expressions too. His hands curled and uncurled, his eyes drifting to her whenever she moved in the room.  
  
She hadn’t known what to expect when he had grabbed her those two times.  
  
God, but he had held her to his chest like he hadn’t seen her in centuries. Hadn’t seen anyone even. And to ask to be sent back; she wasn’t sure if that meant it was better there or if he was just resigned to the whole institution of wherever the grail sent him between wars.  
  
No matter the case, Rin found herself watching the outdoors, sitting in the leather seat that her father would have sat in whenever he needed to work. The room was still dark, but she couldn’t sleep. Her heart ached.  
  
Lancer was so lifeless.  
  
None of the servants she had seen had been like the man was now, but then, all of them had had the war to think about. When there was strategy and fighting to be done, protection and offense were the main focus.  
  
Perhaps the man needed something. A hobby or a reason to live.  
  
She heard the door downstairs click a moment before a presence entered the room. The man was standing on the other side of the desk. So close… So very far…  
  
“There wasn’t any signs of anything, but I put runes up around the perimeter.”  
  
That was different.  
  
Rin looked over at him in surprise. “You know a lot about runes then?”  
  
A ghost of a smile, possibly nothing. She couldn’t tell for sure if she had seen anything change as he nodded. “Celtic runes are far stronger than a lot of the craftwork that I’ve seen in the house. If nothing else, it’ll hold off any further guests unless they’ve received an escort to the door.”  
  
“Will I still be able to come and go?”  
  
There was a flicker of something in his eye for sure this time. The stoic, lifeless disposition dropped slightly as he nodded, holding up her hairbrush. “While I did retrieve this without your consent, I figured you wouldn’t mind my borrowing it to ensure you could come and go as you please.”  
  
She didn’t mind.  
  
In fact, looking at him standing there, holding her hairbrush, Rin almost found herself smirking. His hair was windblown and tangled, but he was holding out the brush for her as though he didn’t need it.  
  
“Come here.”  
  
He moved around the table, still the same tall, well-toned fighter that he had been before. As he stood in front of her, she motioned him to sit.  
  
“I’m not a dog, Rin.”  
  
“I don’t remember calling you a dog. Sit down.”  
  
He moved to sit, setting his lance to the side. With those red eyes staring directly at her, he held up the brush again.  
  
“Turn around,” she told him, taking the brush from his hands.  
  
The man was obedient at least, turning around waiting for further instruction. The sight of the intimidating man leaning into the brushing, accepting her attentions… It was a strange sight to behold. Archer had taken more care in his appearance, his clothing and hair fixing themselves without her notice. But Lancer didn’t care.  
  
He’d called himself a dead man.  
  
Her fingers wrapped around the silver clip holding his long hair together, slipping it loose until she could set it on the desk. And then, with it all unbound, her attention went to the thicker mess. Long, careful strokes; she went about untangling the mess. His head leaned back, hands on his knees as he accepted the attention.  
  
She brushed back his bangs, looking down at the tired face and thick lashes.  
  
Words were unnecessary. They would cheapen the moment.  
  
For someone that had enjoyed teasing and ruining a surprise attack with words, she rather liked him relaxed like this. His head tilted towards her left leg, eyes closed still as he let her do what she wanted with him.  
  
For someone who claimed not to be a dog, he certainly acted like one when it came to this.  
  
The man was a paradox of things, juxtaposing all her expectations.  
  
So rather than question, Rin found herself simply taking in the moment. She remained in the leather seat, her legs held in place by the man in front of her. Her attention focused on simply taking care of the man’s messy hair for as long as he would let her. The time ticked by at its own pace, unbeknownst to them both.  
  
Over time, his hair became smooth and soft. Her brush was set aside in lieu of her fingers. She debated over what to do what the length of hair before her. She braided it, shaking her head just as she got to the end. The weaved braid was carefully undone, earning not a single word of complaint from the man.  
  
Her fingers carefully worked on curling the hair into a bun, but that didn’t look quite right either.  
  
She tried a pony tail. A simple thing. She had a ribbon in her drawer that she could use or she could use his hair band to hold it in place. However, the sun began to stream into the room. She paused with his hair gathered in her hands, eyes drifting to the parting clouds before glancing at the clock.  
  
Nine in the morning.  
  
“I should get some rest.”  
  
The man looked up at her finally, the same look he had given her all evening openly present once again. Longing, pain, isolation; god, she wasn’t sure what the look meant but that was what she read when she looked into those eyes. Her chest hurt just seeing the expression there.  
  
Her lips parted, the urge to ask him what he was thinking just on the tip of her tongue.  
  
“Get some rest, Rin.”  
  
The man moved away from him, the careful stoic expression falling back into place as he twirled Gae Bolg upright and moved away from her. That loose hair fell around his shoulders and he looked-  
  
He looked untamed.  
  
The man stood before her, so close and so impossible to speak to. There was only work and fighting to think about. Planning and strategizing. Gone was the man that had been teasing her and Shirou, replaced with someone resigned to death.  
  
She sighed, moving to her feet and crossing the distance to him.  
  
He was unreadable as she looked up into his eyes. Her hands on the brush in her hands were turning it in frustration more than anything. Whatever she had wanted from him, it hadn’t been for him to be lost like this.  
  
The man didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.  
  
In the morning light, he just waited, watching. Holding himself away from her to such a distance. Rin gave another heavy sigh before tugging him down by his hair and pressing her lips to his.  
  
Within her mind, she had imagined pulling away and thanking him for his hard work. She would turn around and head towards the door. Her body would be in bed and asleep before she hit the pillows. Perhaps maybe a bit afterwards, if her frustration with him and his lack of response continued the way it was going.  
  
But she hadn’t expected the flash reaction he gave.  
  
Her body was on the desk before she could think to pull away. Her legs were lifted up, her body tossed upwards to end up around his frame. He kissed her like he wanted to breathe only the air she breathed, like he wanted to breathe her in. She couldn’t think around it. Didn’t want to think about it. No one had kissed her like they were dying for her.  
  
He kissed far different from Shirou.  
  
The desk was cold against her back. Her sweater had made it halfway up her chest as she found a light mewl escaping her lips.  
  
Lancer paused above her.  
  
Their breath intermingled as they looked at one another. Finally, after spending half the night lifeless and distant, those red eyes above her were alight with something. His face was grinning slightly, despite stopping.  
  
“I-is something wrong?”  
  
The question, meant to be teasing and confident, came out breathless and weak. The man pulled further away, kissing her kneecap as he went. “We’re both tired. I’ll begin watching the perimeter again. I should be guarding the house.”  
  
“Lancer-“  
  
But he was already moving away, dematerializing so that she was alone.  
  
Her lips still tingled from his attentions. Her middle, exposed to just under her bra, felt the chill of the room as she stared after him.  
  
More than that though, she could feel her mind racing.  
  
A man who didn’t really have a reason for living, finding life in something like…  
  
It was perverted, but logical. He hadn’t been with someone in a long while. Here she was, the first person in how long?  
  
It was only natural that something with flesh and blood and adrenaline would get to him. She wasn’t going to think that he had an interest in her in particular. She was a woman and he was a man. A man who lacked companionship.  
  
She would have to think about helping him connect to people in the world. Saber would also be a resource for this. She had adjusted well to being a part of the world.  
  
Drifting her gaze to the outside world, illuminated with light greens and powder blue skies, Rin nodded to herself. The world was something to enjoy and make the most of. For selfish reasons and for others. She would help Lancer get accustomed to it all. One way or another, she would help him.  
  
It was the least she could do.  
  
In the meantime, Rin thought to herself as she climbed off the desk and straightened herself up, she would need rest.  
  
The hallways looked the same as they always did, but as she wandered into the hallway, Rin’s attention went over the space. It felt different. Safer. Finally, things felt like they were being turned around.  
  
The light that drifted into the hallway from the windows and doorways created a soft ambiance. The little dust that had accumulated after the firing of her maid would need addressed, but after she created a safe environment. Or rather, after the whole situation was handled.  
  
Rin paused as she caught sight of a rock embedded in the dark wood of her door.  
  
The light brown stone glinted where the rune lay within, almost tempting her to run her fingers over the lines of the rune.  
  
She looked around for a moment before heading back towards the study. She could sleep on the sofa in there until the following afternoon.  
  
When she saw Lancer, she would confirm what runes and work had been done to the house.


	3. Dark Tresses

He had told himself several times that he wouldn’t, but he found himself watching her sleep before long. It had been far too much for him to stray far from the house. Rin’s body was wrapped up in a blanket from the back of the couch, her eyes closed as she remained lost to the world.  
  
Once in a while, her head would turn or her body would twist. She would tug the blanket a bit higher than it had been before. Or lower, if her feet peeked out from underneath the blanket.  
  
Had she not trusted that his runes would keep her safe?  
  
He had taken extra care after feeling her mana in that room. He had warded the windows and doors for her. A few minutes carving into the side of the doorframes and he had felt like she would be safest there when she decided to rest.  
  
In fact, the runes would have complimented her replenishing mana. She would have slept deeper.  
  
After a while, Cu Chulainn moved in closer, settling at her side to lean against the couch and keep his attentions on his master. She murmured softly, frowning a bit before she shifted.  
  
As she shuddered, he found himself wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.  
  
Her body wrapped around his in such a nice manner. Those slender arms went around his waist, her head resting against his chest. Her blanket fluttered over her as he wrapped it tight around her. The little murmurs escaped once more as she adjusted to being against him. He couldn’t help but to tug the ribbons in her hair out, letting it spill freely down her back.  
  
Thick, dark brown tresses framed her sleeping face.  
  
She was his master.  
  
The fact kept revolving around his head, creating a lightness in his head and a quickening in his heartbeat. The soft skinned, overly confident woman was in command of him and his weapon. He was her sword and shield. Her rock in a war- Well- Perhaps not war, but in this battle she had been forced into.  
  
Her face nuzzled into his chest a bit more, her arms pulling the blanket closer. “Lancer…”  
  
“Rest,” he found himself murmuring to her.  
  
This wasn’t the room to be having her rest in. He needed her to get the full amount of sleep, not just a bit. Hoisting her into his arms and standing once again, Cu moved towards her room. His fingers traced over the rune embedded into her door, leaving the room open as he pulled back the thick covers and settled the woman into bed.  
  
Interestingly enough, her arms were latched around him, refusing to relent as he tried to pull away. It was a stronger hold than he had anticipated, making him admire her the least bit more. He was forced to work methodically, pulling apart the interlocked fingers and carefully unwrapping her arms from where they were wrapped around him. With her hands in each of his, Cu found himself pressing his lips lightly to them both and watching her carefully.  
  
Once more, her murmurs included his servant class. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. He hadn’t gotten the chance to know much about the woman other than protecting her during the grail war. For her to think about him to this capacity…  
  
He pulled the sheets over her body and set her arms under the covers, allowing her to rest.  
  
There was a part of him that wanted to climb beneath the sheets with her, to teach her what he had begun to show her in the study. For a brief moment, he had lost himself in the feel of her. He had wanted and taken her. His lips had moved against hers, teaching her what the world in its time without him had failed to teach her.  
  
Cu Chulainn could see her in his mind’s eye with the morning light presenting her body. Her arms had been bent to let her sit up slightly. Her lips, bruised and parted, had moved. She had asked him what was wrong, as though he hadn’t simply taken a kiss from her.  
  
No, she had initiated it all by kissing him.  
  
Since surveying the perimeter was pointless with the new runes in place and the house had been prepared in case of forced entry, Cu Chulainn wasn’t sure what exactly his plan was. He sat on the edge of the bed.  
  
He could sleep.  
  
It had been a long time since he had slept. The confines and mana had kept sleep an impossibility for him. Like food, it wasn’t necessary but he enjoyed it.  
  
Perhaps…  
  
He was laying down on the bed soon enough, an arm slinging over Rin’s body.  
  
Was it childish to not want to shut his eyes? The idea that things could be back to where they had been before, with him in that eternal nothingness, and him realizing this could all be fake was too much. Rin’s being right there, in his arms. The soft, cushioned bedding under him and the sunlight streaming over them both were indications that it was real, but there were still chances he had gone insane.  
  
Good chances, given the time he had been cast away from everything.  
  
The grail could want him to suffer.  
  
As pathetic as it seemed, he couldn’t help but to hold Rin close. Hoping to keep the looming doubts at bay, he wrapped himself around her as best he could. It wouldn’t do to wake her. It wouldn’t serve any purpose for her to be aware of the weakness running thick through his veins.  
  
Time would ease this problem. It would stop his desperate idolization for the woman in his arms.  
  
A hand, moving without his awareness of it, moved through his hair. Her other hand pulled his head towards her. Whatever interest she had allowed herself to indulge when she had brushed his hair continued even in rest. Her fingers moved through his blue hair, a soft hum escaping her as she held him to her breast.  
  
Rhythmically, soothingly, she stroked his hair. He could no more move away than he could destroy his attachment to the woman. He didn’t want to.  
  
Closing his eyes, he let himself once more let his mind run rampant. He let the dreams once more have their fill, imagining far more from her touch than what was there. It was a lover’s touch, one shared within only the confines of this room. It was something sacred, needing no words or references.  
  
In his bones, the touch humbled him. It broke him down until he was once more a man in the midst of a lady’s chambers.  
  
He almost could have laughed thinking in that manner. Reminded him of the old days, amongst the lancers and names of his time. Fergus would have laughed, slapping him on the back and mentioning something oriented towards his youth. Diarmuid would roll his eyes, commenting on him not having the brains for chivalry.  
  
Scathach…  
  
She would probably warn Rin to keep him on a leash. His mentor enjoyed the time he had been a guard dog in Chulainn’s home.  
  
Damn man’s fault for letting his dogs out without waiting for his guests to finish arriving.  
  
Rin would be an interesting mix to the people back then. Again, he found himself thinking about that kind of conversation and interaction. What would have been, had fate been different.  
  
The fingers stroking his hair continued, a soothing backdrop to his thoughts.


	4. Mutual Interest

A weight on her chest was the first thing she noticed as she woke up.  
  
It wasn’t overbearing, but she had never been one to hold things of real weight in her sleep. Pillows, blankets, a book: things of smaller and sensible purpose in her bed were normal. Cuddling was just human nature.  
  
This weight was more than a simple tome or linen. It breathed against her chest, tangles of hair wrapped around her hands as she held it close.  
  
-or him close, to be correct.  
  
Rin looked down at the man slumbering against her, thinking carefully about how she wanted to do this. Waking him up would be smart, but given where he was…  
  
“Lancer.”  
  
He didn’t move.  
  
“Lancer!” She put a bit more emphasis into his name, freeing her hands only to shake him slightly. The man’s arms propped on either side of her as he slowly came to. His eyes, opening as though he were the one who had been inconvenienced, focused on her.  
  
Once more, Rin found herself at his mercy as he closed the space between them and his lips found hers. He smelled of oceans and humidity, ozone and sandalwood. His lips beckoned her in, moving deeply and pulling back enough that it was nothing other than teasing. He kissed her in a way that made kissing back mandatory. Her arm latched around his shoulders, holding him in so that the damned man would stop backing away.  
  
And yet he just propped his arms on either side of her, laying above her and the sheets to take his time. Long amounts of time, making the minutes or hours seem like seconds. She wasn’t sure how long the man intended to drag out their- but god, she didn’t know what to call this.  
  
He backed away and Rin found herself covering her lips, releasing him immediately.  
  
“I would say good morning, but it would seem that we slept the day away.”  
  
Rin stared at him, watching the youthful retort slip through his lips as natural as the sun rising and setting. Slowly, moving as though the image before her was nothing more than a dream, she ran her hands through his hair. The grin on his lips was soft, those red eyes gleaming with amusement and mischief.  
  
“Lancer…”  
  
“Ah- my true name is Cu Chulainn, woman.”  
  
Was he still half asleep? Dreaming?  
  
Why he would be this friendly and affectionate otherwise was beyond her thinking. He moved in close again, his lips pressing against hers and Rin had to remember how to speak. She had to remember how to think when all the blood in her body was making her cheeks heat up and her body- Well, words were hard when there was someone above her, treating her this way. He let himself sit up a little, hovering just over her body once more with either leg on either side of her. His one hand went next to her head, holding himself up as the other hand skimmed down her arm. In hindsight, she should have pulled her hands from his hair.  
  
His lips pressed against one of her arms as he held it in place.  
  
She didn’t dare say his true name. Saying it would endorse the dream he thought himself to be in. Yet saying Lancer didn’t seem like an option either. She was lost between a rock and a hard place, her stomach churning as she tried to think through what warmth her body was expressing and the noise of her heartbeat pounding against her ears.  
  
Those eyes, piercing in their watching of her, fixed onto her reddened face. He leaned in, his hair a barrier from anything in the outside world.  
  
“In all my imaginings of you, I’ve never once managed to get you to say my name. My name, not the class name from the war.”  
  
The name was right there, on the tip of her tongue. Watching him watch her, a portion of her longed to just say it. She wanted to see what would happen. What would he do? Would his smile grow? Would he steal another part of her sanity away with those lips?  
  
He moved in closer, leaning into her hand as she used her free hand to hold his face. Honestly, it was a debate over whether she was holding him back or cradling his face. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what was on her mind.  
  
“Is it that impossible to hear you say?”  
  
A flicker of red along his face, criss crossing under his eyes. Those eyes flashed as Rin felt mana flicker between their skin. Had he been a servant from someone else, Rin would have considered him in that moment to be berserker.  
  
Her words were frozen, unable to escape. His name remained a thought on her mind.  
  
The light was fading from his eyes again, his body pulling away from her.  
  
Something felt disconnected, detached. She wasn’t sure how to describe it. It felt like, if she didn’t do something, she would lose the man in front of her. It was a ridiculous thought. He was her servant. He would be with her until she was done with him. No- He was her familiar. That made it even harder to simply lose him. They would bound by her mana.  
  
Yet, her hold of him tightened, the hand on his cheek going to his neck.  
  
Rin found herself moving into an upright position, pushing the sheets down so she could escape their hold. Her arms slowly moved to wrap around his neck as she eyed his lips.  
  
It was wrong. She would be using him for her own personal interests.  
  
But she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of him at all in that way. He was a man. Flesh and blood, fit and lively. He teased and danced around her rigid life.  
  
She was going to regret this.  
  
Their lips connected, her arms wrapping around his waist again. His clothes dematerialized. Flesh, warm and firm, was under her hands now. He pushed her back, pressing her against the mattress once again. Deep, mind melding kisses connected them again and again, until her mind couldn’t think of a time when their lips had been separated.  
  
His hands moved up her sweater, tracing along her sides.  
  
“So it’s like this,” he breathed, his voice low and thick with that accent of his. “I’ve been a damned man anyway. I suppose I don’t mind.”  
  
He was still waiting to hear his name? Rin held him closer, taking a breath. She was going to call him that. If nothing else, since he was doing so much for her.  
  
No, she wouldn’t call him that out of obligation.  
  
She just didn’t want to see him the way he had looked at her that morning. Never again.  
  
Better perverted than lifeless.  
  
“Cu Chulainn.”  
  
Her voice made it sound faint, religious. It left her lips like a sultry murmur, echoing in the room. Crimson eyes trailed over her face, pulling away to stare at her in wonder.  
  
She returned his gaze, lips bruised and face flushed.  
  
“Say it again.”  
  
“Cu Chulainn.”  
  
She emphasized her pronunciation, watching him stare directly at her lips as she formed the name. Her eyes trailed to his chest, staring at the dark blue hair that was peppered across his upper body.  
  
He didn’t let her stare long, his mouth returning to hers. Over and over, until he growled and began to kiss her neck. His hands worked her sweater higher. He was going to undress her if she let this continue. They would end up doing something there was no real coming back from. At least, not in a business sort of sense.  
  
The kissing was too far, but that was something she was not going to be able to avoid. She had botched up that when she had tried to chastely kiss him.  
  
Her hands pressed against his chest, earning his larger hands around them as she pushed him lightly. His lips returned to hers, sending the interest in stopping to a hiatus.  
  
“Rin,” he breathed.  
  
“We have to stop,” Rin panted, her lips following after his a bit for another kiss. They pressed against the mattress a little more with the next kiss. She moaned against him, her hands holding his tightly. “Cu Chulainn, we have to stop.”  
  
“Tell me to stop then.” He dared her.  
  
There was no way to stop this other than to turn her head. Closing her eyes, Rin pulled her hands away and tugged her sweater down. “We have to stop.”  
  
The man didn’t move. “Why?”  
  
She peeked one eye to look up at him. Her face was already turning a dark red. “B-because… You’re supposed to be helping me find whoever’s got my notes and information about familiars. I’m not supposed to be taking advantage of you like this.”  
  
The man blinked, pulling back. Rin felt a bare thigh against hers and refused to move her gaze from his face.  
  
He was nude. Nude and in her bed.  
  
They could not do this again!  
  
Meeting his gaze was too much. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to leave. There was a house perimeter for him to be patrolling. The house could use cleaning. He could find something to do while she gathered herself back together and gathered back up her sanity from wherever it had gone away to.  
  
The sheets moved slightly as Rin felt a body loom over her own. A hand moved along her cheek a moment before she felt his lips press lightly against her own.  
  
“You should turn me out, Rin. Send me back.”  
  
“What?!”  
  
He pulled back, making her look up at him as he pulled his hair behind his head. Those eyes remained ever focused on her. “I know my interests are returned. Never let a man know you crave them.”  
  
The man moved off the bed, heading towards the door.  
  
“Was I that bad at kissing then?”  
  
The words were out of her mouth before she could recall them. He stopped a moment, his head turning enough that she could see his expression.  
  
“You don’t want me to answer that question. I won’t find your enemies if I answer that.”  
  
Rin forced herself to nod.  
  
“When this is over,” he added, remaining still and stoic. “Know that I will be answering that question. I’ll have a few demands of my own.” He looked back at her and the old Cu Chulainn was back. Mind, body, and soul- all reflected in the shit eating grin on his face. “I have to say, I like how your hair looks loose like it is.”  
  
Rin stared after him as the door closed.


	5. Sexual Frustration

He didn’t stop until he was in the kitchen, moving around the room in an attempt to get something started. He needed something to busy himself with, to think about lest he think about what had happened upstairs any further.  
  
He could still feel her body. Gods, he could still feel her giving herself to him for a while there.  
  
She had said his name.  
  
The echo of his name in her voice made him slam the cold storage door shut harder than necessary. He looked towards the ceiling, trying to gather himself together.  
  
It had been too long without someone. He was a fighter, but this kind of fighting was unorthodox and cruel. What’s more, she had asked him if she was a bad kisser. Gods, she had asked him if she was bad kisser. Danu and Dagda themselves would have been bad kissers long before she was. Any of the gods would have taken advantage of her moment of weakness, stealing her away.  
  
The people of this time had been given their chance. Forget death. Forget the grail. He was going to steal away the woman.  
  
Steal away his own master. He was talking like a madman.  
  
He didn’t know the first thing about cooking in this time either.  
  
Staring at the different boxes and cans in the cabinets, Cu Chulainn paused. He needed to think about things more clearly. He had let himself get carried away and now he was paying for it. Things had been simpler when he had simply accepted that he was going to be fighting and then dying. Fight, win, die.  
  
Now he was thinking about how to get anything ready for the woman upstairs in bed.  
  
Or rather, he was thinking about climbing back into that bed with the woman as soon as possible.  
  
He could already picture pinning her to the bedsheets. He could already picture slipping her skirts off. What’s more, he knew the sound of her voice after he let his intentions be known.  
  
“There’s no need for anything much for breakfast.” The vixen walked through the doorway, yawning lightly as she moved around him to get the tea kettle from the stove. “I normally just have a cup of tea for breakfast. It’s easier than anything.”  
  
“There’s nothing else you normally have?”  
  
She grinned sheepishly. “Normally, I am running late. I have a habit of oversleeping. Besides, nor making breakfast means I don’t spend anything on breakfast food. Do you need anything?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You can have a cup of tea with me then. I always make too much anyway.”  
  
He wasn’t going to argue with her on the futility of the tea. He just settled at the stool he had been on the night before. “Do you have a plan in mind for trying to find your intruder?”  
  
Rin looked over at him, her hair still unbound. She smiled at him, killing him a little more inside. “I have been trying to take soil samples from places in the city. There’s a few places that have mana residue in the top soil. I think those places in particular will be useful places to search.”  
  
“The chances are low that we’ll find them simply by wandering out.”  
  
“I’m aware.” Rin nodded. “That’s why I also want to stage a fight between you and Saber.”  
  
He frowned. “Saber was your first familiar, right?”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Why would you want to have me fight her?”  
  
The kettle whistled, the woman spinning around and pouring it into the teapot after a few minutes. Her pause only made him frown more. Fighting Saber, while entertaining, wouldn’t accomplish much.  
  
“I have been making sure to keep my distance from Saber and Shirou for a few weeks. I want to set up a fight with them to make the person and their familiar think that we’re not working together. Shirou and I think that the person might try to connect with myself or them if we are against one another.”  
  
“But you need to be seen being opposed.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
He shrugged, “we can try it, but if they go to Shirou and Saber.”  
  
“We’ll watch them, just in case. I figure after first contact, Shirou will send me a message.”  
  
It wasn’t a terrible plan. Accepting the teacup from the woman, Cu Chulainn shrugged. “When and where is this fight going to happen?”  
  
“The bridge in Fuyuki. It’s central in the city and has the best opportunity to being seen by whomever was stealing my research. I hope you know that I want us to come out on top in the fight.”  
  
Demanding, but he couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy the barb. “I’m stronger than Saber. I’ll give you a good fight. I can’t promise not to accidentally kill her though.”  
  
Rin shook her head. “Saber said the same thing.”  
  
The king of knights didn’t quite have the same skillset that he did though. He doubted that she had been summoned before as other classes. Nor had she expanded her skill set.  
  
“Oh,” Rin set her cup down and looked over at him. “What is the rune on my bedroom door?”  
  
“It’s to keep people out when the door is closed.”  
  
“Convenient.”  
  
“They’re imbedded in your windows as well, just to keep the intruder from stealing you away when you’re resting.”  
  
“There are spells and protections already in place around the property.”  
  
“And those have been ineffective so far.”  
  
Rin gave an annoyed hum, but she didn’t argue the retort. Probably because he was right. Without the runes in place, the house hadn’t been protected from whatever magecraft the intruder was versed in. With the old Celtic magic in place, the woman was free from those concerns, unless someone were to find and destroy what he had spent a good portion of time setting up.  
  
“I’ll call Shirou and Saber after we finish our tea. I want to have the fight tonight. It’ll be a good opportunity. We can spend the afternoon looking for hints of company and familiars.”  
  
A simple nod and the kitchen was quiet once more. Rin’s attention remained in other places. Her eyes roamed over the cabinets, the counter. She brushed at imaginary dust on the counter after a few minutes.  
  
He just waited, enjoying the silence.  
  
“About upstairs…”  
  
The woman kept her cup near her face, hiding behind it as she tried to find her words.  
  
“…I understand that being a servant and trapped in the Holy Grail Wars would make eternity… companionless… However, I am not planning to take advantage of you in that way. If you choose to seek out some kind of company…”  
  
There was absolutely nothing more absurd than what was coming out of the woman. All he could do was stare at her as she tried to hide away behind the small ceramic mug and state whatever she wanted to state about him looking for sex.  
  
“Just… I would like to at least not see it.”  
  
“And here I had come to think you were smart.” Cu Chulainn shook his head. “I have no interest in fucking someone right now.”  
  
She raised a brow at him.  
  
Rightly so. He would have sex with her on demand.  
  
Or rather- on offer.  
  
“Ask me after I find your intruder.”  
  
She growled at him, turning her gaze away so he could enjoy her profile. “You can’t just expect me to take you at your word when we were just…” Her face reddened.  
  
“You shouldn’t tease a man about seeing other women,” he continued. “I will hold myself back since you seem to think my interest is due to my summoning or connected to some sense of obligation, but once I have completed what I am here for, I have ideas and plans. You’ll see soon enough. But if you tease me further on this, I’ll just go ahead with what I want and let whatever happens after that point happen.”  
  
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
He just met that haughty, suspicious glare with a smile. “Gods, your young. I have no interest in fucking some stranger when there’s someone more interesting to have sex with right here. I’ll find your enemies, kill them, and then well...” He let his smile show the lingering depths of his interest. “I’ll make you scream my name.”  
  
“Y-You can’t just talk about things like that in that way!”  
  
Laughing, he could tell she barely meant that. Her body was hunched over the mug, avoiding his gaze but there was none of the tension that there should have been. All of it had gone away at his intentions being stated aloud.  
  
She had wanted to hear him say that he was only interested in her.  
  
“Contact Saber and the kid,” he told her, moving to set his mug in the sink before he went behind her. He ran his hands over her shoulders, easing her further. His lips were to her ear as he murmured. “I look forward to obeying your orders tonight.”  
  
A hand covered her face as he laughed.


	6. According to Plan

Looking forward to obeying her orders.  
  
Rin found herself on top of one of the port storage bins, looking around carefully as Lancer crouched on a bin nearby. The man’s hair was once more tied into place behind his head, eyes trained on the area at full alertness.  
  
Summoning the man had been more of a pain than she had wanted to deal with, but having him around… She could have done without the sexual comments and promises. She had dealt with more of the man than she had originally thought she would deal with. His attentions, presence, and teasing comments were different.  
  
He was different than she had expected.  
  
To be fair, she had never actually worked alongside him. When Shirou had spoken about him being more capable than most during the war, she had pictured him to be a typical lancer oriented person. He had just had a natural talent for appearing wherever had been inconvenient or, later, convenient to her. Seeing him now with his runes and his careful listening, she was starting to realize there was much more to his system of fighting.  
  
The man lowered his fingers to the ground, murmuring a moment before wisps of grey flickered outwards. Runes.  
  
Strange for a lancer to be doing things that seemed more suitable for a caster to perform. Then again, perhaps he had been fluent with runes before. It would explain how he knew things.  
  
Saber and Shirou appeared below, right on time. The duo looked around carefully, surveying the area as they were supposed to. They had dressed for the situation, ready to fight should they need to. It was perfect. She had been careful about choosing an exact time that wouldn’t be considered natural. No quarter or half passed any hour. No even numbered times. Naturally, she had settled for 11:47 at night.  
  
Lancer dropped down without missing a beat, grinning boldly as he swung around his spear.  
  
“Lancer.” Arthur rested her hand on her weapon, eyeing him carefully.  
  
The man spun around that spear, stalking around the king of knights as he looked her over. Naturally, Saber wasn't going to be giving him her back. She was going to be ready for this opening act. She was ready to do as they had practiced over the phone.   
Rin eased herself against a nearby bin, watching carefully.  
  
“I didn’t expect you to come looking for my master so quickly.” Cu Chulainn’s voice was almost a playful drawling out of the words. “It’s a shame I can’t let you have her back.”  
  
All according to plan. Cu Chulainn- No, Lancer was going to be acting as though he had been hiding her away, refusing to let any other familiar come to fruition from the Holy Grail War. And then Saber, being the kind woman that she was, was going to act as though they should. For freedom. Her stance would be that servants deserved to be laid to rest or freed in general.  
  
The argument would turn into a fight. Hopefully the two sides would allow the intruder to see potential in one of the two.  
  
Anyone with half a brain would see the so called 'sincerity of their battle and opt to pick a side, if only to keep from running into trouble with their own servants. They would most likely see the merit in Rin's side, since her side meant obedience and the ability to have more servants at their side.   
  
“I tried to contact you,” Saber told him. “Rin knows a lot about freeing us. If we-“  
  
The man cut her off, making Rin pause. “I don’t really care about any of that.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Rin agreed with the confusion. What the hell was the man doing?  
  
Cu Chulainn swung his spear around, aiming it at her. “Personally, I don’t really give a shit about whether the servants want to be free or trapped. It’s not my business. All I know is that I was summoned and the woman that summoned me is at least very interesting.” Those fangs of his appeared slightly as he smiled darkly. “And it’s been a long dry spell.”  
  
They were all spluttering as the man lunged. Saber’s deflection was distracted, weak. She leaped away as Shirou tried to attack, but the man parried around them both and laughed.  
  
“I’ll let you both walk away if you leave now. Stay and I’m not responsible for what happens.”  
  
“Where’s Tohsaka?” Shirou wasn’t acting. After they tried practicing on the phone, Rin knew the boy was incapable of going with the ruse. That was why they had selected Saber for the talking. He was looking around at the area, trying to find sight of her when Cu’s lance landed against his shoulder.  
  
“I don’t care to repeat myself,” the man told him, making Rin’s heart race.  
  
Saber moved in front of the boy, her sword aimed carefully towards Cu Chulainn as she glared. “What are you planning with Rin?”  
  
“I don’t have anything planned. Don’t need to. I’ve managed to train her well how to live in the moment. Those moments require a bit more rest than I am patient for, but-“ she watched him shrug indifferently, making her hands curl around her gems.  
  
The bastard was changing the whole thing up!  
  
Shirou, damn the man, began to blush up a storm, spluttering as Saber lunged at Lancer. The blade was easily deflected, tossed aside even.  
  
Lancer moved quicker than her eyes could track. His spear to her throat. His spear’s end grew spikes outwards.  
  
“Final warning,” he told her. Growled, more like. Rin had to strain to hear what was said.  
  
“If you lay a hand on Rin,” Saber hissed. The blade pressed closer.  
  
“You test my patience…”  
  
“Rin will never submit to you,” Saber snapped.  
  
The man moved before Rin could hold back the mana, snarling as his lance went right through her sleeve. This was going downhill fast.  
  
Taking aim, Rin directed her attention to her familiar.  
  
A selection of runes ran around his frame a moment before the man looked in her direction. The pointedness of his gaze drew her to a stop. If they hadn’t, the runes did the job just as effectively. One moment they were circling his frame, leaping up to stop the attack from Shirou; the next moment they were around her, blocking off a spear.  
  
Rin looked behind herself, watching the person in the distance.  
  
The man below moved to her side in a matter of moments, his arms lifting her up easily as he caught the spear that came in her direction.  
  
He snapped it in two.  
  
The two lancers, both cloaked by the evening’s darkness, faced one another.  
  
The other had something, something that drew her in. The longer she looked in the other’s direction, the more she wanted to close the distance. It wasn’t that she could make out any features either. Everything her maid said now made sense.  
  
The shadowed figure was handsome. No in appearance but in presence. He gave off peace and warmth. Their very essence was something that instigated a depth of-  
  
A hand wrapped around her, pulling her close.  
  
“It has been a long time, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne.”  
  
“Cu Chulainn.”  
  
Rin watched as the other moved closer. Green suited, fair haired; the man was both appealing in presence and average next to Cu Chulainn. The man swirled his other blade around, holding it at the ready.  
  
“You don’t wish to fight me.”  
  
“I don’t, but my master has interest in the woman you’re holding.”  
  
Cu Chulainn’s grip on her tightened.  
  
The other man nodded. “So it is that way, is it?”  
  
Rin tried to move, but she found herself held tighter. Cu Chulainn’s armor was changing, with something moving just behind them both. She couldn’t see what it was.  
  
“The war and women have taken away your sanity.” The man told Lancer.  
  
“And you’re going to lecture me on women, after Grainne?”  
  
It was hard to tell what the purpose behind their conversation was, but Rin couldn’t think around the fact that her intruder was right there and there was nothing. She had summoned him to kill this man, yet they stood resolute, conversing.  
  
Every time she tried to move, she found herself held in place tighter. Their opponent looked down at her again and shook his head. “She’s not yours yet.”  
  
Cu Chulainn’s spear spiked further, mana flowing freely now. Whatever was happening, Rin found herself powering him further. He was going to drain her dry at this rate.  
  
“Peace,” the intruder of her home told him, raising a hand and putting his spear down. “I came to watch over the familiar that was summoned, but finding you here changes things.”  
  
“You broke into my woman’s home.”  
  
His woman.  
  
Rin looked up as best she could at the moment, making eye contact…  
  
He was covered in runes. His eyes underneath showed crossing runes. His chest, now that the armor had changed, showed a selection of deep crimson marks. His shoulders were covered in a fur like fringe.  
  
Berserker.  
  
Whatever was happening to the man, it was reminiscent of a class change. However impossible as that was, it was happening.  
  
The man before them couldn’t compete with someone that was experiencing class changes. Tactics would have had to change each time they were fighting. And if he changed in mid fight?  
  
It was like multiple personality.  
  
“My master is interested in your work,” the other lancer- no, the only lancer- told her. “Being that you are the only one capable of such things, he would like to know exactly how and what all can be done with familiars. I can’t say that I don’t feel similarly.” His eyes drifted over her current captive.  
  
Carefully, Rin pressed a hand to Cu Chulainn’s chest. Finding enough mana to force back the immense pressure of the man’s abilities, Rin forced herself to have a voice. “Who is your master?”  
  
The man simply bowed, backing away as the man holding her growled. “A man does not battle a beast, my lady. At his current state, your companion has an unfair advantage. He will kill me before I manage to explain my master. Simply know that he is watching. We will be in touch soon…” Despite the parting words, Diarmuid lingered. “Do not speak of my woman, Cu Chulainn, lest I speak of yours.”  
  
She was close to the ground before she could blink, pressed close as the man lost more of his sanity. Humanity gone, she was left in the hands of madness.  
  
“RIN!”  
  
Saber and Shirou climbed the rest of the way up to their position, giving the lancer time to escape. The blonde, noting the man holding her, held her sword once more at the ready.  
  
“Saber! Stop!” Rin held a hand out, watching the familiar’s runes wrap around it.  
  
“Rin!”  
  
“Stop!” Rin repeated. “Give me a minute! Something went wrong!”  
  
An understatement.  
  
Everything had gone wrong honestly. Cu Chulainn had taken the fight in another direction and then… She wasn’t sure what to make of him at this point. But his hands on her were tight, the runes around them sparking as he lay at the ready.  
  
Protectively though. He wasn’t killing her or anything. He just kept her tight against him, focused on remaining against him. If the others came close or spoke to him long, she had no doubt he would attack for that reason.  
  
“Rin!” Shirou called over towards her, earning a wild, violent look from the man holding her.  
  
“Lancer,” Rin murmured. Her hands shook slightly as she held them to his chest. The attention went to her once again. Fixated, focused.  
  
There was not a single doubt in her mind at this point: She had messed up his summoning. Somehow, she had summoned him without class. To call him a lancer was a gross underestimate. Berserker and caster were wrong as well.  
  
He was a blend of things.  
  
Perhaps he had been that way before the grail’s classes were set in place.  
  
Yet Saber hadn’t been that way. Diarmuid seemed similar.  
  
Cu Chulainn’s heated breath was on her face as she cupped his cheeks.  
  
“Easy,” she murmured, remaining close. “Easy now.”  
  
God, but she didn’t know what to say to him. She wasn’t sure if he could even understand what she was saying. He had remained focused on her when he was normal though. Hopefully he wouldn’t snap her in two when she tried to calm him.  
  
Rin held up a hand as Shirou and Saber both called over to her.  
  
In all my imaginings of you, I never got you to say my name.  
  
His words echoed through her head. He had admitted that he thought about her after the war. For a year, he had been thinking about her. In whatever capacity that was in, she was not sure, but the hints that it had been something more than simple master and servant capacity were strong.  
  
Her eyes met his once again, her mind rattling through the options.  
  
Appealing to his thoughts and interest in her would be the best bet at this point. Her hands reached up, tracing over the markings under his eyes. Moving her body carefully in the man’s gloved hands. They were more talon like than hands, but she wasn’t going to dwell on the details at the moment.  
  
Rin pressed her forehead against his, thinking. She needed something better than easy now to say. As he tried to keep the two others in view, Rin moved her face in the way, keeping his attention focused on her.  
  
“Are you in there, Cu Chulainn?”  
  
The question was honestly her deepest concern at the moment. He was supposed to be a lancer, controlled and disciplined in a certain manner. Teasing and stubborn, annoying and independent to a certain capacity, perhaps. She couldn’t say that she minded.  
  
He took a full minute to gather himself before his voice came out in a low, unsettling tone. “I am not out of control, woman. I am in full control of our mana.”  
  
“I understand,” she agreed, lacking an argument for that. His grip and the mana flowing around them in abundance made it perfectly clear who was putting in the extra effort at the moment.  
  
“I will kill him,” the man told her. The finality of his words, combined with the gravelly tone, turned her insides to ice. Would he be able to stop if he killed the other man? He seemed to have known them. However well was up to debate, but, given the lack of control, she was concerned about how far he would go towards harming others.  
  
“Cu Chulainn,” Rin whispered, only managing the quietest of tones. “I don’t know that I can let you do that.”  
  
His gaze was lethal, creating a shockwave through her spine.  
  
“I can’t lose you.”  
  
The laugh was a bark as he curled himself around her tighter. They moved further away from the two nearby as Shirou threatened to get her.  
  
“I need you back to normal,” Rin continued, ignoring what that laugh could mean. “I need the side of you that doesn’t drain me. I can’t stay upright much longer if you use all our mana up.”  
  
A grunt. They were getting close to the edge of the shipping bins, the metal screeching as his fingers dug into the metal sides.  
  
“Cu,” she breathed, eyeing the edge and the good twenty foot drop coming close. If his grip slipped in the slightest. “Cu! I just… I need you to come back to me.”  
  
Another grunt.  
  
She pressed her lips to his, without options at this point. It wasn’t as though she were the most knowledgeable about how to do this kind of thing, having only had relations with Shirou once. That had been for mana sharing purposes. Short term as well.  
  
Kissing Cu Chulainn was far different.  
  
The berserker paused, his eyes closing as well as he let himself be kissed. Mana dissipated, receding back to nothingness as she found herself held on his lap. Slowly, teasingly, his lips moved against hers. He took his time tasting her, pulling back as the runes under his eyes faded.  
  
“You’re back.”  
  
Cu Chulainn looked over her shoulder, eyeing their guests carefully. “We can talk tomorrow. Rin needs rest.”  
  
“You changed class.”  
  
“We can talk tomorrow,” he repeated, ignoring Saber’s comment.  
  
Rin nodded, looking over at the two. “It’s fine. Lancer is going to keep himself in check.”  
  
Hopefully. She didn’t want to say it aloud, but the other’s response was something to be concerned about. There wasn’t any information about servants switching classes or being parasitic to the extent that Cu Chulainn had been when he had gone Berserker. In fact, she had her concerns about what it would mean if he lost it again.  
  
“I should stay with you both,” Saber began.  
  
“No, that’s fine. I’ve got it.” Rin smiled at her. “We may have had things get out of hand, but your arm needs patched up and I need to get Lancer somewhere where he can relax. We can talk about the person that we saw-“  
  
“I have seen him before,” Saber interrupted.  
  
“We can talk about it tomorrow,” Rin emphasized. “Let’s just get everyone healed and resting.”  
  
The two weren’t going to simply accept that though and she was, frankly, entirely understanding as to why. The man had lost control and gone insane. Without any kind of control over Cu Chulainn, all it would take is whatever catalyst it had taken before to turn up again and he would be right back to the state he had just been in.  
  
Sitting calm and normal as ever, the man stood up, holding her tight in case she needed the support. Which was true. Rin felt like all the strength had been stolen right out of her legs. Her arms too. God, but she was exhausted from this whole mess.  
  
“Your shoulder, Saber,” Rin pointed out.  
  
“I want you to call us in the morning when you get up,” Saber told her. “We’ll come over immediately.”  
  
“That’s fine.”  
  
“I mean it-“  
  
“It’s fine! It’s fine!” Rin smiled brighter, pushing more effort into seeming energetic and at full capacity than she was feeling. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m up. I’ll even keep the phone by the bed.”  
  
“Maybe you could stay with us,” Shirou suggested.  
  
“Go,” Rin dismissed. She turned her attention to the oddly silent lancer and motioned to him as well with one hand. “Let’s go, Lancer. We need to have a talk.”  
  
The man just looked at her a moment before he turned his attention to their allies. “Rest. I won’t do anything Rin doesn’t approve of. I’m in control of myself.”  
  
“If anything happens-“  
  
“If I sense anything like this happening again,” Cu interrupted, “Then Rin will end up with you both.”  
  
His pupils dilated, just slightly. Rin looked over as both Saber and Shirou finally accepted the words. Saber’s grip on her sword loosened, letting it dematerialize before she looked over at the red head at her side. Shirou’s loud sigh and sudden focus on Saber’s bleeding arm made it clear that there would be a great deal of whining to come in the following morning. He would make life difficult for a while because he was still upset about the familiar situation.  
  
As though it were a problem. Saber had freedom. Cu Chulainn had deserved to be free from wherever he had been all this time.  
  
If it wasn’t for someone, somewhere in the city, stealing her notes on familiars…  
  
They wouldn’t be in this predicament.  
  
Rin watched the two leave, carefully moving down the storage units and onto the ground. Saber’s wound was being held in place by Shirou as they headed down the pathway between all the storage bins.  
  
The light posts eventually stopped illuminating them and they were gone.  
  
“I want to talk about this,” Rin told Cu Chulainn, looking over her shoulder as the man let out a rather large yawn.  
  
“I’m sure you do.”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“It wouldn’t work if I told you not to worry about it, would it?”  
  
She shook her head.  
  
The man let out a groan before hauling her up into his arms and turning to leap towards home. Once more, she found herself in his arms, at his mercy.


	7. Responsibilities and Explanations

She questioned him for hours on end.  
  
No, questioned deigned that they sat on equal seating, simply keeping a level tone and being reasonable. Rin was nothing like that. The moment they were in the house and had the place locked down, Rin was pulling books out and asking all the questions that came to her head.  
  
He sat, waiting for eternity as she badgered him with her doubts and concerns. Was he a berserker? Was he a caster? As though he wasn’t clearly using his lance. Had he been switching classes before the fight that evening? What had triggered his berserker tendencies? Could he do it again on command? Was he in control or did he feel out of control?  
  
At a point, the woman began to sway on her feet, burning a path into the floor as she paced the room.  
  
“You reacted positively to me at least,” she mentioned, noting in her little journal her thoughts. “If you hadn’t, we probably would be in trouble right now.”  
  
Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that he had reacted positively to her due to his incapability to forget her. He had used her for sanity when he had been in his prison, waiting to be summoned by the grail. Listening, ever listening.  
  
Rin let out another yawn and her body moved sideways. He barely made it to her before she caught herself.  
  
“Tired?”  
  
Rin shook her head. “I want to figure this out. You were adept with just a lance in life, weren’t you?”  
  
“This and that,” he responded vaguely. “Lance, runes, close combat things.”  
  
“I don’t actually know about your history that deeply. I know I remembered Archer mentioning that you were an Irishman from the Ulster Cycle, but I don’t actually know that much more. He wasn’t the most talkative.”  
  
“Nothing worth looking back on,” he told her, giving her a push towards the stairs. “Rest.”  
  
“I can’t.” Rin looked up at him, holding her notebook closer to her chest. “I need to finish finding this out. We need to talk about Diarmuid.”  
  
“Tomorrow, Rin.”  
  
“We’re talking to Shirou and Saber tomorrow.”  
  
The sun was already rising. She didn’t have long to rest before the others would be at the house, demanding answers to questions that should never be asked. If Rin didn’t get her answers, it would seem that she was intent to drain herself to her last bit of mana. Already he could feel her capabilities waning. Even if she did find her answers in their entirety, she wouldn’t remember a third of them.  
  
“Besides,” her gaze looked him over meaningfully, those blue eyes filled with… Gods, but that looked like concern. “What if you go berserker again?”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
“Do you know what brings it about?”  
  
You. The word was on the tip of his tongue. The thought of losing her, watching her die in his arms or be stolen away brought it about. It would seem that remnants of mana and muck from his confines were still in his system, playing havoc with what magic he knew. While the extra power was a welcome addition to his power, it meant draining Rin.  
  
“Cu Chulainn?”  
  
He blinked, leaning in close as he turned away from his thoughts. “I have an idea, but it’s not worth looking into at the moment. You need rest and you need something in you to help keep you functional. You barely ate today.”  
  
“I had some toast and I had that salad for dinner.”  
  
Bread and some rabbit food. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her diet being filling. She was already curling her fingers to argue her diet with him though. He held himself back.  
  
His arms wrapped loosely around her waist, pulling her in close.  
  
“Your food was efficient, but you used too much mana. In order to accommodate another type of servant, you would require more energy than for my normal class. While lancers don’t use much energy, berserkers do.”  
  
“And casters.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“You use too many runes for a typical servant.” Rin leaned her head back against his chest. “I’ve been taking notes on your runes, but there’s more than most mages would know how to use, even if they were associated with certain families.”  
  
“My point still stands that you need food and rest.”  
  
A large yawn escaped those lips before Rin was nodding, wiping at an eye. “Alright… Fine… but you need to tell me one thing.”  
  
“What do you want to know?”  
  
Half of him wanted to drag the woman upstairs already and make her rest. He could manage it, rune capabilities being what they were. Between warding the house and using his craft on the woman, he could manage to hold everything in its place until Rin recovered her mana.  
  
But using that kind of work would require more mana than he was willing to commit to. She would also regain her energy slower.  
  
“What brings about the class change?” Rin asked him.  
  
She didn’t really know when to ask questions, did she? Once again, she was getting right to the thick of things, jumping into the battle without knowing her opponent. Asking that would mean a long explanation; it would mean explaining himself to a point where they would be making other decisions. Decisions like that needed time, thinking.  
  
Something slithered into his thoughts, for lack of better phrasing. Being the way that he was, there were a great deal of options to ensure he got decisions and choices he would prefer. He could feel the same snarling, single minded determination he had felt before.  
  
“There it is,” Rin reached up, tracing along his face with her fingers. Her touch, so cold and light, contrasted harshly to the feeling of the berserker thoughts running through him. “I asked what it caused it so it must be psychological.” Her light blue gaze flickered up to his, “What are you thinking about right now?”  
  
“You.”  
  
It left his lips before he could stop it, earning a nod from the girl.  
  
A nod, as though his psychosis was something simple and straightforward. “I’ve always wondered how berserkers work. They can’t simply have madness for madness sake. I always imagined that they were attached to their masters somehow.” She nodded to herself again, her touch remaining on his face. “I bet it must be associated with danger to the master. Or maybe it’s some kind of association with a master’s thoughts.”  
  
“I don’t think it has to do with your thinking.”  
  
“Does it just happen when you think of me in danger?”  
  
Again, it was back to the question being too deep. He cleared his head, leaning in close to her for her presence alone. Clearing his thoughts of anything else, he let himself be taken in by the warm, flushed face and her slight tremble. She wasn’t sure about his closeness. If he tried anything, she would move away, beginning one of her nervous and embarrassed responses that she had done time and time again with Saber’s master.  
  
“L-Lancer…”  
  
He made a noise, unwilling to explain himself.  
  
Her lips rounded, head turning slightly as something came into her pretty little head. “It… It doesn’t have to do with what happened the other night, does it?”  
  
“Rin,” Cu Chulainn sighed, “Just stop talking for a minute and let me enjoy a moment.”  
  
“I’m trying to understand this so when Shirou and Saber ask, I have some kind of explanation!”  
  
“Some things don’t need explained.”  
  
“This does!” She held onto his face, her hands on his cheeks. “You have runes appear on your face and chest. Your fighting attire changes. Your spear grows spikes and I have a feeling a lot more happens, but all I know is that you were guarding me and came back down from that berserker mindset the moment I… er…”  
  
“The moment you what?”  
  
Rin tried to pull away, but he held her hands in place, enjoying their connection. Any time their body was touching, he felt in control of it all. The mana between them flowed in perfect balance. Her mana controlled what mana he had come with inherently.  
Her teeth bit into her lower lip as she tried to think with him so close. She had a little huff, frustrated and relenting in its sound at the same time. Honestly, it was the cutest damn thing he’d ever heard.  
  
“You stopped when I kissed you.”  
  
Daring woman.  
  
“I’m guessing that your touch is keeping my mana under an extra layer of control,” he told her, closing his eyes. “I won’t go berserker. However, keeping you close would be an extra measure of assurance.”  
  
Her thumbs were stroking his cheeks lightly, her expression softening. There was still fight in her, he had no doubt of that, but watching the resistance and walls tumble further between them was a victory worth celebrating.  
  
She leaned up and pressed her lips to his nose. Her words made his blood turn to ice. “You’re my familiar and my responsibility. I can keep you close and keep you from going insane.”  
  
Her hands pulled away, the woman turning and hurrying up the stairs towards her room.  
  
Cu Chulainn looked down, feeling the extra mana becoming once more unbalanced. The blacking out warning signs reaching the edge of his vision.  
  
Waiting, standing where she had left him, he waited for the door to shut before he let the berserker mentality take over once again. It oozed through his thinking, pouring forth like the mana that had surrounded him when he had been within the summoning pool. It clouded out the feelings, the emotions, leaving him with a welcomed numbness. Everything went away as he found his consciousness going to the wayside.  
  
A tail swished behind him, curling around one of his legs. His eyes opened, taking in the world around him from a new perspective.  
  
The moment he felt his master fall asleep, the last of his resistance to the thoughtless mentality severed.  
  
A berserker stood in the midst of her sitting room, beginning to prowl after taking a good look around.


	8. Berserker

The house felt colder this morning as Rin woke up. Her gaze flickered to the clock in the room, noting the late afternoon time reflected.  
  
Soon she would be returning to classes and focusing on a few different things. Cu Chulainn would need to resolve the issues before Golden Week ended. Given, she had summoned him and skipped a couple days of school already. With it being Thursday afternoon, she was sure she would be receiving a nice voicemail on the house phone about her missing.  
  
Frankly, there were other things on her mind at the moment. She could always pay a doctor to write her a phony excuse. She could have a serious illness.  
  
Dreadful illness, but it wouldn’t explain what was happening.  
  
Which left her back with the initial issue: something was off in the household.  
  
Moving slowly, Rin pulled herself out of bed, wrapping a robe around herself and pulling the door open. The house was silent, unnaturally silent.  
  
“Lancer?”  
  
Her call was answered with more silence.  
  
He could have fallen asleep, she supposed, heading towards the staircase. Given that he had gone berserker the night before, he could have found himself lacking in mana and unwilling to address the issue with her. Then again, being without much mana, she wasn’t sure exactly how he would recover the mana on his own. Typically, servants didn’t have their own mana.  
  
Not much at any rate. Archer and Saber had taught her that.  
  
Then again, she was now dealing with familiars rather than servants. Things were a bit different. For all she knew, with her servant being multi-class oriented and being a familiar, he could very well require rest and nourishment.  
  
She paused halfway down the stairs, glancing over and staring at the man on the sofa.  
  
Berserker had a tail. A spike riddled tail that moved as he sat with his arms over the side of the couch. The red fringe she had noticed before was part of a hood that covered the top of his head. His pants, in what had to be one of the most revealing outfits she had ever seen, were cracked, as though the elements themselves had put him together. Plasma like, the red pulsated.  
  
To say he had mana was to say water was wet. His spear was on the table, almost the same as it had been the night before.  
  
His two clawed feet were on the table, clicking slightly as he bobbed his foot to a tempo only in his mind.  
  
“Lancer.”  
  
His gaze flickered to her a moment before he let out a slow, bored yawn. “Woman.”  
  
So much for being in control of himself or his concern for her wellbeing being the cause of his change. She had slept, entirely protected behind runes he had put in place himself, and here he was once more in the same state as he had been last night.  
  
Rin moved carefully down the rest of the stairs, overly focused on everything. The carpet was soft beneath her feet as she moved through the space. Her eyes remained focused on his returning gaze. Her hands held onto the railing, noting the cracks and the imperfections in its craftwork.  
  
Perhaps he had been testing his capabilities.  
  
She couldn’t blame him for that. Finding out there was a collection of capabilities that you didn’t have before would be an interesting opportunity. Shirou had pushed himself too far during the war to understand how he could have a noble phantasm like his possible future as Archer.  
  
Rin’s gaze flickered over the man a moment before she nodded to herself.  
  
“Would you like something to drink?”  
  
“No.”  
  
His tail swished.  
  
“Something to eat?”  
  
He shook his head once, his hood falling back.  
  
She wasn’t sure whether to back away from the man or smack him. Rather, she stood her ground, crossing her arms over her chest as the man simply sat there, owning the domain.  
  
“That’s it? You’re just going to sit there then?”  
  
“Until the fighting happens.”  
  
She sucked in a breath, shaking her head at him now. “Great. Well, since you’re going to be essentially useless to me today, you can sit there the whole damn day.”  
  
Nothing out of him. The tail just continued to swing back and forth like some mutt’s tail. Or maybe it should be likened to a cat because he certainly didn’t have much in the way of a dog personality.  
  
Going into the kitchen, she began to brew a pot of tea. While it steeped, she went back upstairs, all the while waiting for something from the man.  
  
But he remained in his spot, watching, waiting.  
  
She returned to the main floor dressed, taking a thermos from the cabinet and pouring her tea into it. She would enjoy it over at Shirou’s home. School was almost over for the day. He would no doubt be on his way home shortly if he wasn’t already heading there.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
Rin stopped halfway to the door, looking over at the man. “Out.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
The man was climbing to his feet, rolling his shoulders a bit before picking up his lance from the coffee table. As she watched, he moved closer, towering over her. The pure mana oriented presence of him had her gut instincts screaming to turn tail and book it. Far.  
  
“Absolutely not.” Rin motioned at him. “I don’t take berserkers out. Especially when they’re half mutated. Normal lancer or nothing.”  
  
“I’m stronger.”  
  
“You’re a police report and prison cell waiting to happen.”  
  
That got an eyebrow raise.  
  
“You’re seven feet tall at least and toting around a spear, threatening to kill people and you’re only around to kill people. You’re not going with me any-“  
  
One moment his face was a good distance away, the next- he was up close and personal. His face was mere centimeters from her own, growling.  
  
She glared right back at him.  
  
“If it consoles you, I won’t attack until you point them out.”  
  
“Absolutely not.”  
  
“I won’t let you leave without me.”  
  
“You can try.” Rin aimed carefully, keeping that eye contact that he was so intent on trying to use against her. It was a battle of wills, a test- hopefully. With him in the state he was in, she was sure that she didn’t have enough mana to truly fight him.  
  
Bluffs were something she was more than capable of performing though.  
  
“You have guts,” he told her simply, remaining for the most part still. Had his face not moved, she would have tried to find the other person in the room speaking.  
  
“I don’t have anything. I am serious.”  
  
Talon-like hands wrapped around her arms, his face moving in closer. “Fine, let’s think about this rationally, shall we?”  
  
Rational. As though he weren’t out of his mind at the moment.  
  
“You go to Saber and her pet’s house,” he held a finger to her mouth at the word pet, “-and you decide whatever it is that you decide… That leaves you with only a name and a vague history of the man. Whatever humans decided was worthwhile to remember.”  
  
“You knew him.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“I knew bits and pieces. What was passed along and the few times we met on the battlefields.”  
  
He had known about the man’s lover though. She couldn’t recall the name but it had made the other upset. Cu Chulainn’s knowledge of their opponent was invaluable. Rin bit her lip as she tried to think. It was clear that Cu Chulainn had trouble coming down from his berserker class. Whatever got him to that point was very difficult to stop thinking about.  
  
The berserker’s eyes drifted to her lips, making Rin pause.  
  
When she had kissed him last night, he had gone back to his normal form. There was nothing that said that it wouldn’t happen again.  
  
His eyes drifted up to hers, as though sensing her intentions. Yet he didn’t move away. Even as she reached out slowly, running a hand around the back of his neck.  
  
“I’m not insane,” he murmured, making her pause just short of his face.  
  
“I won’t take you like this,” Rin told him.  
  
His hand moved from her arm to her mouth, covering it as he tilted his head. Those eyes narrowed slightly. “That is not what I meant, woman. I’m not insane or out of my senses. I simply haven’t bothered to hold back the grail’s mana.”  
  
The grail was destroyed though. She tried to say the words, but they weren’t coming out with his hand in the way. Her voice was a jumble.  
  
“You mentioned where we go when we are not fighting,” he growled in that low voice of his. “It’s not a location, it’s a prison. The grail’s mana blocks us from all sides, leaving us all in separated and isolated places. There’s no light or cold. There’s no changes in what’s around us. In my own space, I have tried climbing into the mana once.”  
  
She just stared at him, unable to ask the obvious question.  
  
“I don’t know what happened.” He told her. “I never remember this state. I remember the other me in this state though.”  
  
Curling her fingers around his hand, Rin finally got to pull away.  
  
A prison. Of all the things she had imagined, it hadn’t been that. The cold, icy demeanor in Cu Chulainn made it more apparent that the place described was worse than his words.  
  
“That may be, but I still can’t take you outside the way you are. You look threatening. In your normal state, you at least look friendly enough.”  
  
He shrugged. “The attire comes off.”  
  
She just bet it did. That still didn’t remove the thousand pounds of pressure that his presence gave off, leaving no doubt to anyone in the area that one wrong move would earn them a one way trip straight to the afterlife.  
  
“I have feelings for you.”  
  
The statement was simple. Like stating the weather or noting a fact. Rin could feel herself pause, eyes growing wide.  
  
“Like this, I don’t particularly feel the need to attach myself to you. You have my spear should you wish to use it. The other part of me though, your lancer, has feelings for you.”  
  
“I-I’m aware.”  
  
Somewhat.  
  
She hadn’t really considered much from their conversations on the matter, setting it aside so she could focus and get what needed to be done finished. A large part of her was certain that the feelings were out of obligation rather than true feelings as well. Cu Chulainn was- Well, he was a heroic spirit. He had lived a full life before and had no doubt lived it to the fullest. Compared to that, someone like herself- just starting to live and learn- would be a poor substitute. She wouldn’t know how to cultivate a relationship in any way that the man had learned to enjoy.  
  
The berserker clicked his tongue at her, his fingers wrapping under her chin and lifting her face up towards him. “You still think I serve you out of some sense of duty, don’t you?”  
  
“You were a servant-“  
  
“Your archer was a servant.”  
  
The truth of that one hit deep. She was still upset over how things had ended between herself and Archer. Though she had accepted his loss and his help at the end against Gilgamesh and the escape from the grail, there were times she thought deeply about what she thought in his regard.  
  
“If you don’t serve me out of obligation, then why?”  
  
“I admire your mindset. You plan, fight, and win. No truly rash decisions or waiting around.” Those gloved fingers were stroking her chin as he spoke in what had to be the most bored manner imaginable. “You’re sentimental, but it doesn’t get in the way of your overall decisions.”  
  
“You’re not encouraging me at all to take you outside with me.”  
  
“You wanted someone to serve you.”  
  
She blinked.  
  
“The mana imbalance is something I can control and hold back most of the time, but the least bit of letting go will result in this.” He pulled back. “If someone threatens to take you away from me or harm you, I will kill them. Violently. Brutally. You’ll never find the body.”  
  
Saber had yelled something to that effect last night. Rin looked the man over once more, taking in his words. Her gaze flickered up to his.  
  
“I won’t apologize for it.”  
  
“I wouldn’t expect you to, but I can’t have you killing everyone that looks me the wrong way.”  
  
“Send me back then.”  
  
Rin shook her head, averting her gaze at the very thought. She couldn’t send him back. No matter what. No matter what he did or what he became…  
  
Moving forward, Rin wrapped her arms tightly around the berserker. She shut her eyes as she let herself relax further. The mana was still sending warning bells off in her head, but he had made his intentions clear.  
  
The mana balancing out once more was more like a weight being taken off her shoulders than anything. Her body was pulled tight against Lancer’s as she found herself once more in the presence of Cu Chulainn.  
  
She turned her head, nuzzling her head against his neck. Her arms tightened around his shoulders.  
  
“Rin.”  
  
“Give me a minute.”  
  
He didn’t move, didn’t speak, as she took a moment to just take in his presence. Her thoughts were revolving too fast.  
  
All she could think about was being trapped in a prison, surrounded by the same mana and curses that had been pouring forth from the holy grail. Being stuck year after year for centuries, with nothing and no one to talk to. Never to eat or drink.  
  
If he’d slept, she doubted it was for long. Monotony would have set in.  
  
The house she lived in felt like a prison from time to time. Without many guests, the place could become just a collection of spaces full of memories and ghosts. Still, she had the memories. She had dreams and goals.  
  
She pulled away a little, looking at him again and thinking things over a bit more.  
  
Telling him that he was her responsibility was wrong. He still was someone with thoughts and aspirations. He was still someone that thought and breathed. The strong heart beating against her hand on his chest told her that much.  
  
“Rin, what are you thinking?”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Lame as the words were, they were all she could think to say. He raised a brow, but waited for elaboration.  
  
She didn’t want to explain her apology to him. He wouldn’t accept that she hated what had happened to him and what he had suffered. She leaned in close and took a breath, hoping the courage in her would last just a bit longer. Her bravado when faced with such a drastic choice could only last so long.  
  
“I could help you control your mana.”


	9. Pity for the Weak, Fortune for the Bold

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant.  
  
Finding Rin in his arms was something he wouldn’t argue over. It was a good somethin’ to come to find. Her holding onto him, distressed and apologizing, was something else entirely. Once more, the woman was a mystery he wasn’t sure he wanted to figure out.  
  
Rin was biting her lip though, nodding as she continued to no doubt think on that odd tangent of hers.  
  
“Rin?”  
  
“You have feelings for me.”  
  
Treacherous ground; he was not going to say a damn word to a line like that. She was neither confessing nor looking excited at the prospect. The way her lips formed that truth was more like someone preparing for either a favor or…  
  
Trouble. She was looking for trouble from him.  
  
“You do, don’t you?”  
  
“That’s a vague way to say I care for you, but yes.” His way of saying it was short, but he wouldn’t worry deeply about that.  
  
The woman in his arms sighed a moment before she leaned against him.  
  
“What are you doing, Rin?”  
  
“I’m trying to gather myself together for asking you to share mana with me. Give me a moment here.”  
  
Share mana…  
  
Cu Chulainn stared down at her, the idea snapping into place.  
  
_You’re my responsibility._  
  
She wouldn’t dare be thinking to that length, would she?  
  
It was Rin. She would take the fun out of the intimacy if she let that damn mind of hers go running the distance. Damn it all.  
  
He carefully set the woman on her feet and rolled his eyes at her. So she was going to extend the whole responsibility thing to concerns over his mana and having sex? While admirable, the prospect made his stomach twist.  
  
“Rin, my mana is fine.”  
  
He needed to think of something. His eyes scanned over the scene. She had her coat on. Her shoes were in place on her feet. He looked over at the nearby thermos and frowned, picking it up. “Weren’t you heading somewhere?”  
  
God, he couldn’t remember. Sleeping was not something he indulged in often. He wouldn’t be again for a while, not after letting his mana and the thoughts plaguing him take over.  
  
“Lancer-“  
  
“It’s fine,” he handed her the thermos and pushed her towards the door. “Let’s get going before your friends wonder if I ate you. I wouldn’t put it passed Saber to already be heading this way.”  
  
“Damn it!” The thermos was thrown aside a moment before she was slapping him. Even as she hit him, her eyes were widening. A blush was coming to her own face as she tried to sort through the thoughts on her mind. “I’m sorry I… No,” she stopped her apology, glaring at him. “Don’t just go all berserker on me and say things like wanting to kill everyone for me and then turn around and kick me out of my own house and reject me! I’m trying to return your damn feelings, you asshole!”  
  
Feelings? He didn’t even bother to touch his cheek. Her slap had been nothing more than a pat compared to all the training he had been given in life. He leaned in, closing the distance between them. Her breath caught, her body shaking a little.  
  
Indecisive as ever. She was so scared, so caught up in being the pristine noble of a woman that she was and giving in to her emotions. She was toeing that line, just there.  
  
“Rin…” He pressed his lips to hers, feeling her body shaking harder as he allowed Gae Bolg to come into fruition. She hummed, despite her conflicting emotions. Rin was wholly dependent upon letting her mind and body get caught up in the moment, lest she think.  
  
The blade of his spear slid along her coat, softly giving off the sound of tearing. His lips stole more of her air, more of her sanity away.  
  
The fabric separated from one another, drooping on her arms as she gasped.  
  
He pulled back, watching her clothing fall a little more.  
  
She put him in an awkward spot. He put her in an awkward spot.  
  
“The hell, Lancer?!”  
  
He went to place his weapon before him, preparing to tease her when the weapon was swiped. Rin’s eyes darkened.  
  
“My clothes are expensive!”  
  
He wrapped his hand around hers, smirking as he leaned in to murmur into her ear. “I was just thinking, for once in your life, what would you be like just letting those precious little societal rules go and act like the feral wildcat that you are.” He pressed his lips to hers quickly before booking it for anywhere but where she stood with his weapon.  
  
“GET BACK HERE!”  
  
“You’re too caught up in poor Lancer feelings!”  
  
He wasn’t spending a single moment when the woman had a weapon that could kill him. Again. He booked it towards the kitchen, going for the other side of the counter as Rin followed at his ankles.  
  
“I was trying! I don’t know how to do this kind of thing! We’ve got enemies around and you went against the entire plan last night! You could have mentioned you were classless! Just a quick, ‘Oh hey, Rin. You did something odd with the summoning. I am a berserker and a caster and who the hell fucking knows what else’ but instead you just let me believe you were just a lancer!”  
  
He ducked a swipe in his direction, thanking the gods above that the woman had no experience with his weapon class. Running for the living room again, he took to the stairs.  
  
“LANCER!”  
  
He stopped behind the bedroom door, waiting for her to enter. His hands grabbed hers as she leaped into the room, his arms wrapping around her tightly.  
  
“Let me go! I have to kill you.”  
  
Well, in that case- Cu Chulainn held her tighter, pressing his lips against the side of her neck. His hold of her tightened a little more as she cursed at him.  
  
“Lancer…”  
  
“That’s enough.” He pulled her flush against himself, his grip on her hand moving between her and Gae Bolg. The lance came into into his grasp, dematerializing at his command. “That’s it. We can talk it out.”  
  
“I have to go see Shirou and Saber.”  
  
“Afterwards.”  
  
“I can’t talk about this.” Her skin warmed under him, her face reddening. “I…” She tried to cover her face, but he held her hands away, wrapping them around herself as he held her tighter to himself. He walked them towards the bed.  
  
“I won’t be an obligation,” he told her.  
  
“You’re not.”  
  
“I’m not a responsibility.”  
  
She nodded, turning her head to lean against his chest.  
  
“I’m not doing this to share mana with you.”  
  
Which left them with mutual attraction. It left them with he found her priceless and she found him invaluable. Between the two of them, they would share time together for no other reason than they were a man and a woman with interests in one another.  
  
He would ask her about his berserker tendencies at a later point. It would be when he was finished telling her about Diarmuid and the man’s history. Knowing that it was Diarmuid meant he at least knew the man’s tactics. If nothing else, it also made things much simpler. The man was a stickler for chivalry and justice. If he could do nothing else, the man would lay off Rin, knowing she was his.  
  
And she was. She fell onto the bed without an argument, her hands going to the hem of her sweater as he let his armor dematerialize. He wouldn’t bother with undressing when he could go ahead with this. Her breasts, small and begging for his attention, came into view as she tossed her sweater aside.  
  
His hands went to her waist, tugging her closer a moment before he let his lips find hers once again. It wasn’t like the night before, with her pulling away and mentioning something about rest and responsibilities. She didn’t shy away when their lips parted. Air became a memory, separation a hindrance. He kissed her out of pure need and she wrapped those legs right around his waist and pulled him closer.  
  
He climbed onto the bed, pinning her down and letting himself take in the moment. Take in her. Those fingers of hers went to his hair, getting a good grip for what was to come. Those legs, shaved and soft, held him tight, preparing to keep up with him.  
  
Vibrant, brave Rin.  
  
Naïve, sheltered Rin.  
  
He would be worshiping the ground she walked on for eternity. He should have known that the moment she remained in his mind in his prison. If he had to go back, he would think of nothing else but this. His fingers untied those hair ribbons, letting loose the twin tails and watching her brown hair spill over her shoulders.  
  
The hair was a curtain that blocked her from seeing the moment he swooped in to kiss along her chest. Each movement got him closer to her breasts, tongue running over the point where fabric and breast met.  
  
“Lancer…”  
  
“I believe I told you to stop calling me that,” he growled, his hands slipping under the bra. He pushed it up, removing it without unhooking it. Too much mechanics. Things slid off. He tossed the useless thing aside, enjoying what they had been hiding. She was flushed, porcelain feast for one. Well…  
  
He slipped his hands under her skirts and moved the fabric he found underneath down her legs. A smile was unavoidable as he looked down at her.  
  
“You can keep the skirt and the socks. I think it adds.”  
  
She stared up at him, opening and shutting her mouth as she tried to find the words to respond to him. Whatever she wanted to say, he didn’t care to hear it. She had said enough.  
  
His fingers stroked down beneath that black fabric of her skirts. Her legs were resting on his shoulders, unable to make it to the bed since he would just push them back up onto his shoulders. Her head leaned back as she let out a soft moan. Those blue eyes closed. Her hands reached up for the headboard.  
  
Slowly, teasingly, he began to stroke between her legs.  
  
He should have touched her more, worked his way to this point of her body, but he wasn’t going to wait when she was stuck between wanting him and wanting to keep her distance. They could have done this when he had first been summoned had she simply said the word. Or the next day. They could have done this earlier, after returning from the fight.  
  
“Rin.”  
  
She looked down at him, eyes dilated, hair in disarray already.  
  
“You have to tell me that you want this. I need to hear it from you.”  
  
She shivered in response or maybe it was from his fingers stroking her insides. Nothing about their situation at the moment could be considered fair or on equal grounds. He had swept up the rug from under her and he wasn’t going to apologize for it.  
  
Her beautiful face tilted, leaning against one of her arms. Her grip on the headboard tightened. Her legs landed on his sides, ignored now for something more interesting.  
  
“Do it.”  
  
“Do what?” He leaned over her a little more, ghosting his lips up her stomach. He stopped just shy of her breasts. “You’ll have to be more specific than that, Rin.”  
  
His brave Rin wasn’t going to shy away too far. The woman rose up to his dare, looking him directly in the eyes a moment. “I want you to have sex with me. You’re already naked. Put it in me already.”  
  
Cu Chulainn laughed, pulling his fingers out a moment before he climbed her body. It wasn’t really a climb, considering the height difference. His lips found hers, his hands moving along her chest. Reverently, or perhaps blasphemously, he worshiped every inch of her body that she had given him. She squirmed beneath his touch, moaned into his mouth as they kissed; where he had been breathing for a thousand and some years, he hadn’t been alive.  
  
This- with her hair strewn about the bed, writhing in pure ecstasy, was alive.  
  
So close. Her experience in this kind of thing was lacking, boring. Like the house around them, it was beautiful, isolated, his for the taking.  
  
God and he was going to take her. Pulling apart their lips, he told her so. She was shaking harder as she took in the words, unable- unaccustomed to such talk.  
  
The new house invader had come in and it was him. He was going to take the most valuable thing in this whole home.  
  
Again and again.  
  
She was prepared for him, slick and hot as he reached back under her skirt. He let out a bark of laughter at the feeling, separating his lips from hers once again before he moved his mouth to where she was truly desperate.  
  
A taste like nothing else, bringing the best rendition of his name to her lips.  
  
What a goddess, screaming it like that. He slipped his tongue into the space between her legs, lapping her up for all she was worth.  
  
His touch was driving her to madness, the mana between them creating pressure in the room. Everything was ablaze to his senses. He could feel every detail. Her flushed skin, soft legs, the rougher feeling of the bedsheets, the sound of her breathing as she gasped and rustled the sheets. Her voice, higher pitched than normal, breathless, speaking through lips bruised and battered from battling with his lips; she echoed his name, repeating it for what she truly wanted.  
  
Her climax came wildly, driving her into grabbing his hair for some kind of support. With a growl, he pulled his lips away from her core, shoving her body back against the bed. Her grip left as she shook and shuddered through that unbelievable high.  
  
Lining himself up, he shoved his cock into her and watched as she howled beneath him.  
  
She wasn’t quiet. Couldn’t be quiet. Rin was a person of action, planning, wild and valiant fighting prowess. Nothing about her called for peace and quiet. Her passion was louder than anyone’s that he’d ever seen.  
  
Perhaps she had been given time, he wasn’t sure how long he enjoyed the view of her climax sweeping through her. All he knew was he began moving and she was climbing up from whatever level of peace she had reached. Once more, he found himself amazed, surprised in the best kind of way. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, lips pressing against his, her hips rocking in time with his thrusts.  
  
“More.”  
  
The request only had to be given once. Cu Chulainn pushed himself into her faster, changing the angle until she let out another one of those screams of hers. He drank it in, drank her in. Every inch of her body was flushed now, attuned to his body.  
  
“Cu- I- More. More.”  
  
“Call me Cu Chulainn again,” he demanded of her. “Again, Rin.”  
  
She screamed his name as she came again, leaving him to growl at her. His lips moved to her ear as she pressed her to the mattress.  
  
“I didn’t give you permission to come, Rin.”  
  
Her climax slammed through her harder. She was clawing his shoulders, drawing blood as he moved his lips to her upper neck and bit down. The sensory overload, mixed between pleasure and pain, was driving him to the end of this. He could feel his own need to cum closing in on them. Pulling out slowly, he positioned himself one more time and slammed himself home, burying himself to the hilt.  
  
Everything crashed. The mana balanced out, entirely, his mana shared with the woman in his arms. His vision swam in pure white, blocking out the room as he let himself go once again. Rin’s body under his continued to shudder and cling to him, her lips pressing again and again to his face. She rained her attentions on him, finding his lips as he collapsed at her side. He accepted whatever she would give, craving it all.  
  
His arms locked around her body, pulling her atop his person and lazily kissing her. As the adrenaline and lust cooled down, he brushed her hair back and kissed her just for the enjoyment of her lips against his own.  
  
Her head came to rest on his chest after a time, his body pulling out from hers.  
  
Her hands traced along his body.  
  
“You have runes again.”  
  
He hummed at her, unconcerned.  
  
“They’re different.” Her fingers crisscrossed his arms, “The other runes were darker.”  
  
“If you still have so much energy, Rin, then get back up here. I still need you.”  
  
Those blue eyes seared him in their openness. “I’m trying to understand you.”  
  
“I think you know me better than anyone else alive at the moment.” She knew his body better at the very least. He had a few ideas in mind for later. Next time, he was slipping her skirt off and leaving some marks. Well- more marks.  
  
A nice red spot on her neck warned that she was going to be complaining about bruising later.  
  
“You know what I mean,” those lips of hers murmured. She moved up his body, those lips returning to his. Courageous woman that she was, she didn’t cower from the thought of after sex time. He slipped a hand under her ass and pulled her up a little more. She lay for the most part across his chest.  
  
His hand rubbed against her upper thigh lightly.  
  
“I was supposed to visit Shirou and Saber.”  
  
“You were taking care of a berserker issue.”  
  
“I was,” she agreed. “You had so much extra mana. I don’t quite get how I can feel exhausted and energized at the same time.”  
  
He hummed again. Conversing was not something he felt like indulging in. She could talk for the two of them, letting him enjoy the sound of her voice as her hands memorized his every inch. Truly, her hands had moved onto his chest, taking in the differences between their bodies as she spoke.  
  
“I should have done this sooner. It would have been wrong though. You were just summoned and I had to keep in mind that you have your own thoughts and opinions. It would have been inexcusable to use you for my own personal interests, not if you weren’t willing as well.”  
  
He was going to fall asleep listening to that voice. While the thought was tempting, there was just the one issue. Rin would try to go to Saber’s home that she shared with that boy. With Diarmuid loose, he wasn’t naïve enough to think that the warrior of Fianna’s ethics would be echoed by his master. Since he knew that it was him in the woman’s arsenal, he could see the master trying their hand at another servant summoning as a familiar.  
  
Rin yawned, her eyes tearing up a little as she nuzzled against his chest. “Do you think Shirou and Saber will be mad if we contact them tomorrow?”  
  
“They’ll be fine.”  
  
She nodded, kissing his chest. “Thank you.”


	10. Fishing

Waking up on Cu Chulainn, Rin had to take a moment.  
  
Well, more than a moment. She couldn’t quite decide what all to think about this. At the time, knowing he felt something for her and knowing she had paid far too much attention to him, she had decided to go ahead and see where their mutual interests would lead.  
  
Now she knew. They led to this point, curled up in bed. His hand was tangled in her hair, as though he had been stroking it while she had slept. His clip for his hair was laying nearby, his hair in disarray as badly as hers no doubt was. He slept with his other arm stretched out, flat on his back. It was like he was daring the world to just try to wake him up.  
  
Her lips pressed against the center of his chest, amongst the blue hairs that dusted his chest.  
  
“Rin…”  
  
Her name left his lips like a breath of air, making her smile slightly as she took in the sound of it. Seeing him open his eyes, looking down at her sleepily; it reminded her more of a dog than anything else. He let out a large yawn before the hand in her hair began where it left off, stroking at her scalp.  
  
“Good morning,” he murmured. His voice was thick with an accent, creating a nice fluttering in her stomach.  
  
It was crazy to simply want to lay here forever with him.  
  
“Is it morning?” Rin pulled away from him, sitting up on his chest. Her eyes drifted to the clock, biting her lip.  
  
“Early, but yeah.” The man was moving as well, pulling her against his chest and pressing his lips to her neck. She could feel his arm slip around her waist, making her lean into his touch a little more. She went willingly, taking a comfort in the touch.  
  
He was comforting. Obnoxious as he had been before, he was someone strong and that strength resonated. She could feel his mana intermixed amongst her own, giving her a bit more power for the battles to come.  
  
“I should be going to school.”  
  
Cu Chulainn’s lips pressed against the back of her neck now, making her give a slight shiver. All she could do was close her eyes, enjoying it all.  
  
“I should.”  
  
“Or you could stay here today. Go next week.”  
  
“It won’t be open next week. Next week is a holiday week. We won’t have school.”  
  
“One day won’t make a difference,” he purred, his hands running over her shoulders now. He pushed her hair over one shoulder, his thumbs working at tension she hadn’t known she had held.  
  
“If I go, Shirou won’t be able to ask too many questions. I can tell him that I needed rest yesterday and that was why we didn’t talk then.”  
  
“We should talk about that eventually.”  
  
“Let’s get something to eat and then we can talk.”  
  
“A woman after my heart,” Cu Chulainn moved away, hauling her up into his arms and pressing his lips to hers for a moment before they were moving through the house. He ran down the stairs, nearly making her screech at the thought of them tumbling together. As they reached the kitchen, he swung the door open with a foot, settling her on the counter.  
  
She was still wearing her socks.  
  
Honestly, she wasn’t sure what to think of the fact that her knee high socks and skirt had made it through what all they had done the night before. Sitting properly hurt too much though.  
  
“Alright.” He looked around a moment, tilting his head a little to look back at her. “How the hell do I work this room?”  
  
“We should start with tea.” Rin motioned towards the kettle.  
  
“I can do that part. The food part is what I’m concerned about, woman.”  
  
“You want to cook like that?”  
  
He raised a brow, “is there a problem with this?”  
  
“You don’t have anything…” She hadn’t gotten him anything to wear. Geez, he had just been running around in his battle armor for a while, ready to fight but never mingle with people.  
  
“I’ll be fine. Direct me to the food.”  
  
Rin slipped off the counter, opening the fridge and handing him a carton of eggs. “Here. I’m going to find you something to wear other than your armor.”  
  
“I can do eggs.”  
  
His arm slipped around her waist long enough for him to kiss her lightly and she hummed, turning away to hurry up the stairs.  
  
When she returned, he left long enough to dress and she doled out the meal, pouring them both a cup of tea before they settled for breakfast. She ended up on his lap, finding it a better comfort than the stool she had originally selected.  
  
Before long, she was feeding him, accepting any food he offered as well. She found herself leaning back against him, holding onto his tie as she ate. It was strange to see him in a suit and tie, like he would bust out of it in a moment’s notice.  
  
The jacket was hung up nearby, letting the white shirt fight against holding in his muscle. While it fit, he was a bit stronger than the previous owner of those clothes. Her father had been average build.  
  
His lips pressed against hers after the final bite of egg, making her thoughts drift away from his appearance. She wrapped her arms around his neck, forgetting about the last of her dish as she let the moment continue.  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
“It’s getting close to seven thirty,” he murmured, keeping his face close to hers.  
  
“I should get moving then.”  
  
“Or we could strategize-“  
  
“I have to go.” Rin pressed her hands to his chest as she pulled away. “We can do this all afternoon when I get back and we will have all of next week, but if I don’t go today, they’ll send someone with my homework and that’s the last thing we need since you’ve set up the runes.”  
  
“I’m walking you there.”  
  
“I expected you would want to.” Standing up, she smiled at him. “You can come with me, but I can’t bring you into the school. You’ll have to find something to do until it’s over.”  
  
“I think I can find a way to spend my time.”  
  
She was tempted to ask what he would do, but it was better not to ask. If he was going to investigate the area, looking for opposition while she sat in the classroom, it was better to let him do his own strategy  
  
With the day devoted to school, she was back to how it was during the war. She would need to keep aware, but focused. She would need to once again keep her eyes peeled.  
  
Even as they left the house, Rin could tell it was going to be more of a problem than originally thought.  
  
Cu Chulainn’s hand wrapped around hers, a set of sunglasses covering part of his face as they headed down the road towards the school. Standing next to him in her uniform, she felt oddly out of place. Still, she found him keeping his grip tight, stopping when a dog walked by to pet it excitedly or to wait for the lights to change.  
  
Walking through throngs of people heading towards school, his grip on her tightened. He pulled her in front of him. His lips went to her ear a moment before he was murmuring something.  
  
She felt her face heat up.  
  
“Tohsaka!”  
  
Rin waved at Shirou, expecting Cu Chulainn’s grip to lighten.  
  
Her gaze went to his when it didn’t.  
  
“I’ll be here at the gates at the end of the day.” He told her, leaning down and pressing his lips to her cheek. When his hand slipped away from hers, Rin watched as he headed away. The man walked away, turning towards the direction of home.  
  
“Tohsaka,” Shirou was at his side when she tore her gaze away from where Cu Chulainn had been. “Did something happen yesterday? Saber and I tried to visit, but there was a barrier around the house. We tried to call too.”  
  
“I was tired. I ended up just sleeping all of yesterday. Lancer was looking out for me.”  
  
“I’m glad. We were worried.”  
  
They began to head towards the building, waving at Sakura nearby.  
  
“Saber worries too much,” Rin told the boy, opening the front doors and holding it for him.  
  
“She does, but after what happened the night before…”  
  
“Enough.” Rin held up a hand. “Let’s agree to meet tomorrow.”  
  
“Why not tonight?”  
  
“I have some plans tonight and I will need to have Lancer at his full capabilities in case we learn anything from planning together.”  
  
“Will everything be okay with the two of you on your own?” Shirou continued to walk with her, heading down the hallway after slipping his last slipper on. “With his classes changing like they did the other night.”  
  
“He’s in full control of himself. I think that the berserker situation may have been a fluke.”  
  
“It was a strange fluke. Maybe-“  
  
“We can look into it another time.” Turning at the classroom door, Rin smiled. “It’ll be fine. We’ll figure out what’s going on entirely tomorrow afternoon. I’m thinking we can meet near the temple or at the usual spot overlooking Fuyuki City.”  
  
“The temple would be easier. We could go somewhere nearby to eat dinner if we don’t think of anything and we won’t have to worry about anyone seeing us and wondering why we’re there.”  
  
“Alright. We’ll meet up then.”  
  
Class gathered. The students paying attention to the front as Rin found herself looking out the window. It still hurt to sit. The jerk had left her sore. To be fair though, she had been demanding the time they had been…  
  
She covered her face, turning her attention to the board. The lecture was continuing, the teacher going on about something or other. He was motioning to all kinds of things, explaining something she had already looked at the night before she had summoned Lancer.  
  
It wasn’t terrible that she had slept with him.  
  
Truly, if anything, sleeping with him had just confirmed the suspicion that she had held the entire time: She had truly liked him. Aesthetically and emotionally, he held up against the standards she had set in place.  
  
Given, they had been enemies. The teasing had grated on her nerves at the time of the war and his attacks had been considered frustrating and inconvenient. He had gotten in the way of so many plans. She couldn’t just plan things out when he was out there during the war, getting in the way of things.  
  
There hadn’t been much in the way of teasing lately though. Last night was the first time in a while that she found herself just living alongside of him, forgetting about the war in lieu of just having some personal time.  
  
Given, she had just wanted to hurt him for playing with her.  
  
Or- just assuming that she wanted to have sex with him because of the fighting.  
  
That was what it had been, hadn’t it?  
  
Damn him. She wasn’t interested in just having sex for the fun of it. She wouldn’t offer her body up in that kind of way.  
  
“Tohsaka?” One of her classmates pulled her attention away from her thoughts and Rin blushed, realizing the classroom was emptying for lunch.  
  
The afternoon promptly after lunch trickled by at the same pace, making Rin wince as she tried to decide whether to kill Cu Chulainn for making her this sore or force him to carry her around until she earned a peace with the soreness in her legs and lower body. What’s more, she had been forced to keep her jacket on, barely being able to cover a rather dark looking mark that Cu Chulainn had left on her neck.  
  
Carrying her around would no doubt be put down as a reward for marking her. She would end up wearing a scarf during the middle of the summer.  
  
The room celebrated the end of the day, the students gathering as Rin promptly slipped through the doorway. She looked around, finding Shirou looking for her down by the shoe lockers.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to meet tonight?”  
  
“It’s fine. We’ll meet tomorrow. 8pm at the temple?”  
  
“8 works.” Shirou waited as she changed into her shoes, leaning against the lockers. “I have to work from that morning until around 4 anyway. Meeting at 8 means I can think about making dinner for us all or at least change into something other than my work clothes.”  
  
“That’s fair. Lancer and I can get something before we meet up as well. It’ll make the fighting easier to have something in our stomachs beforehand.”  
  
They moved towards the door, Rin once again holding the door before they were out in the open. Shirou glanced around and frowned. “Is Lancer not meeting you here?”  
  
Rin frowned with him.  
  
The man said he would be here. Looking around, there wasn’t a single sign of the blue haired Irishman. Rather, there was just the student and faculty slowly migrating towards the gates.  
  
“I said I would meet up with him,” Rin told Shirou, moving around him and grinning. “I should be leaving. I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
  
“Until then.” He gave a wave, but Rin didn’t bother to return it. She hurried towards the gates and down the road, reaching into her pockets and thinking.  
  
It was not impossible for a fight to have happened.  
  
She had a mana and spells for this kind of thing. A simple chant and gem had a locator familiar in the air, flying out over the treetops. It flew in the opposite direction of the house and Rin found herself running.  
  
Each moment was another that he could be bleeding out, suffering. He could be facing down their opponents and she would be- In a classroom or wandering the streets. Going to school had been foolish. She had done it for the peace, for normalcy, but not at this price.  
  
Her eyes drifted over the area, locating the locator after waiting on lights and on cars.  
  
Forget the soreness she had felt. She would feel alright just seeing him in one peace.  
  
The familiar turned towards the docks and Rin felt her stomach churn. She pushed more effort into her running, running through shipping crates and expecting someone on the other side of any of them.  
  
She must have run miles, wasting not a single moment.  
  
Her feet were sore as she reached the end of a row, causing her to stop. Her heart was beating so fast. She was pretty sure she was not going to be doing anything tonight at this rate.  
  
“Rin?!”  
  
Panting, Rin looked over at the bay, staring at the man fishing.  
  
Fishing.  
  
His jacket was spread out underneath him. His tie undone and shirt halfway unbuttoned as he sat with his legs over the side of the concrete. With a pail next to him filled with fish and a fishing rod in hand, all she could do was stare.  
  
He had been fishing?  
  
“What are you doing here? Weren’t you going to meet me at the school when it ended?”  
  
“It finished,” Rin held onto her knees, taking a moment to really catch her breath. Her locating familiar dematerialized in the air. “It finished a while ago… Have you been fishing all day?”  
  
He held up a beer can. “I saw a bait shop on my way back to the house and figured I’d make a day of this.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
He shrugged, patting the jacket for her. “Come here. It’s relaxing.”  
  
“Is it a good idea to be out for long doing this?” She set her bag down on the other side of him with the bucket, eyeing the fish a bit as she flattened her skirts and settled next to him.  
  
He took another swig of his drink before wrapping his arm around her and putting the pole in her hands. “It’s fine. If anyone comes, I’ll stop ‘em. In the meantime, you can enjoy this with me.”  
  
This was sitting, waiting. The boats out in the bay slowly crossed the way as he sat next to her, drinking liberally and enjoyed the silence. And while it wasn’t a forced silence, Rin found herself hoping he would say something. She would have liked a bit more conversation, a bit more action. She had never really bothered with things like fishing before, opting for focusing on magecraft and her studies.  
  
Fishing was more of an elderly thing, wasn’t it?  
  
The line bobbed, making Cu Chulainn lean a little closer. The beer can was set down as that smile was back on his face.  
  
“Start reeling.”  
  
“What?”  
  
He pulled her closer, hands covering hers. “You really haven’t done this before have you?” He began to move the lever on the rod, “You have to reel them in when they start really biting. This guy’s gonna have our bait if you don’t reel him in now.”  
  
The rod began to pull harder, making her jump a little. The man holding her laughed.  
  
“Come on, Rin. We’re gonna lose the rod at this rate!”  
  
She yanked on the entire thing, earning a laugh from him as he continued to work on reeling in the line. Within moments, something broke the surface, splashing wildly in front of them. The fish, rather large for her to really consider a fish, wiggled on the line, dripping onto them both.  
  
“It’s bigger than the last alright,” Cu Chulainn commented, pulling the line closer and unhooking the fish. “At this rate, we could just eat fish for months.”  
  
“I don’t eat fish that often.” Rin looked at the collection of fish again and sighed. He wasn’t just fishing, he was basically getting groceries. They would need to visit both Taiga and Shirou to get them to take some of the collection off their hands.  
  
But the man flashed her another smile, adding the fish to the bucket and Rin found herself taking the fishing line back and letting him cast the line back out into the water. Leaning against him, she found herself closing her eyes, listening to the sounds of the gulls and the boats in the water. She found the beer can in her hands before long, taking a swig and returning it upon tasting the swill he was enjoying.  
  
Reds and pinks in the skyline went to blues and navys, The jacket underneath them was pulled, wrapped around her shoulders as they caught another half dozen fish. At a certain point, the man just started tossing fish back.  
  
“I think we’re getting to excess,” he told her.  
  
“I think we’re already there.”  
  
“Probably.” His lips pressed against hers, tasting of the beer.  
  
They waited a while longer, until the sounds of crickets and the final few boats sounded. She had to take a moment to get up, stretching her legs once again as Cu Chulainn climbed to his feet.  
  
“We’re not going to be able to meet up with the kid and Saber tonight.”  
  
“I told them that we would meet up with them tomorrow evening.”  
  
“That’s my girl,” he laughed, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and holding their bucket of fish. Rin held her bag a little closer as they walked through the streets.  
  
The lamp posts lit the way all the way home, creating spaces of light amongst the darkness. Keeping close, Rin found herself taking in the walk home like she had with the fishing. The silence seeped in, the smells and the sounds adding an atmosphere. The walk in the dark home had always been dull, making her hurry home.  
  
Now she was enjoying everything about this.  
  
Cu Chulainn’s arm slipped around her waist as they grew closer to the house. She unlocked the house for them and let him walk through first.  
  
“I’m going to clean and slice these guys up,” he told her, holding up the bucket.  
  
“Don’t get fish guts everywhere in my kitchen.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
She watched him leave the room, taking a moment to lean against the front door and sigh. They would need to have a conversation about when her school ended when it started back up. As great as the evening had been, they needed to be of a single mind on this matter.  
  
“Rin!”  
  
The man peeked into the room, holding one of the wine bottles from the cellar.  
  
“You have a room of liquor!”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“We should be enjoying some of this with your catch.”  
  
“You know I don’t really drink.”  
  
“It’ll be fine. Liquor is good with fish.” The man turned, grinning like he had found the keys to paradise. “Why don’t you go take a bath and I’ll get dinner ready. I’m guessing you want tea as well.”  
  
“Ah-“ She nodded, “Sure.”  
  
Hovering at the doorway, she waited until he was gone before ascending the stairs and starting the bath.  
  
Cu Chulainn was just…  
  
He was great. Rin couldn’t fault him his vices when they felt like just a part of him. They were a welcomed part of him. Rather than throw a fit over him worrying her to death, she had settled against him and just enjoyed the evening. Rather than bringing it up, she had chosen to just let it go.  
  
Every moment that she had spent with him was different than she would normally partake in. The only time that had come close to normal had been chasing him down in the house with his lance. Even then, she had given in when he had caught her instead.  
  
The steam in the bath curled as she turned off the water.  
  
Stepping inside, Rin found herself easing into the tub and sighing once again.  
  
Life could come later. Enjoying Cu Chulainn’s company was more important.


	11. Teasing

He found her asleep, curled up under a collection of bubbles. Her head was against the porcelain side, lashes hiding away those eyes.  
  
While he could have picked her up and carried her to bed, he was more interested in joining in. Cu Chulainn stripped without a second thought, stepping in and pushing Rin forward. Her soft body was softer than usual, feeling more like the blankets downstairs. The whole room smelled like her as well.  
  
The steam was curling around the room, having fogged up the mirrors a while ago.  
  
Sultry, warm, provocative; the room had become a visual statement towards what it was like to have Rin. As he settled in, he found her body wrapping around his.  
  
“Cu Chulainn,” she breathed, almost sighing his name.  
  
“You fell asleep.”  
  
Eyes slowly opening up, he almost laughed at the large yawn that escaped her. Her body stretched against his as she glanced around. “I fell asleep.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
“Did dinner get cold?”  
  
“It just finished.”  
  
Rin nodded, settling back against him.  
  
“Are you not hungry?” He swore she basically never ate. The woman was living off tea. Tea and planning, if the latter were a source of energy.  
  
“I’m starving, but it’s really warm.”  
  
His lips pressed against the bruise on her neck, pushing her hair out of his way as he did. The sound that escaped the woman made him smirk. Not as much as when she stole his arms away and wrapped them around her though. In the end, he found himself resting his head on top of hers and chuckling.  
  
“What’s so funny?”  
  
“You.” He ran his hands along her arms, feeling her squirm in his arms for more warmth. “You know, at some point, you’re going to have to leave this room and eat. You probably fell asleep in here because you never eat.”  
  
“I ate this morning.”  
  
“Barely.”  
  
One blue eye looked his way before she shook her head. “You need to finish bathing.”  
  
“I guess that leaves me with no other option.”  
  
He gave her a minute, kissing her shoulder to earn another of those small, pleasured sounds from her. Wrapped up in her own little world of comfort, Rin was priceless. It was a shame really.  
  
A true shame.  
  
He picked her up and set her on the tiled floor outside the tub.  
  
“SHI-CU! WHAT THE HELL!?”  
  
“I have to finish my bath and you need to eat.” He leaned his head against the side of the tub and grinned proudly. “That means you need to get out.”  
  
She smacked him, earning a louder laughter.  
  
“You could have asked me!”  
  
“I mentioned it. Besides, if I asked, then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of feeling your ass cheeks in my arms.” He watched her begin to splutter and the amusement grew. “Plus, I can’t help but enjoy watching your breasts bounce every time you get upset. Makes me wonder what to watch, your lips or your-“  
  
“God, you’re a pervert!” She smacked him again, grabbing a towel from nearby and wrapping herself tightly within its protection. “Hurry with your bath. I want to have dinner.”  
  
The haughty strut towards the door was ended with the slamming of the bathroom door, leaving him to his business.  
  
Looking around, all he could see was elegance. The whole house would have been a statement of pretentiousness and arrogance with anyone else. Well- perhaps Rin was arrogant, but he enjoyed the confidence.  
  
It wasn’t quite as fun without Rin in the bath, but he washed up and let his clip in the bathroom, leaving the mess loose and heading towards the stairs.  
  
“You know where clothes are,” Rin told him, not even bothering to turn around to see him undressed.  
  
“I’d rather not bother. I have a towel.”  
  
She just threw him a look, probably still sour about being lifted out of her bath. Had she expected him to towel her down? He could have, maybe he should have- but he probably would have just started a nice round or two of sex.  
  
Then the food would be cold.  
  
He materialized his armor on, settling into a seat as Rin finished with her tea.  
  
“Have some wine with me.”  
  
“I’m underage.”  
  
“No such thing,” he poured two glasses and set one down in front of her, sipping from the other.  
  
“You’ve been drinking all day, haven’t you?” Rin pushed the glass a few inches away from herself and sipped at her tea. “All that alcohol isn’t good for you, you know.”  
  
“Drinking is good in moderation.”  
  
“All day is moderation?” One of those eyebrows was raised at him skeptically, her teacup being set down as she unfolded a napkin and set it carefully onto her lap.  
  
“I had a couple cans. That doesn’t really count. They were weak too.” Unlike the wine she had. The bottle had been older, but he was actually surprised. Like everything else in this place, the wine she had was a finer quality.  
  
“Maybe compared to when you roamed over the earth,” she told him. “Drinking any is getting intoxicated. I don’t want you to end up getting drunk.”  
  
“Have you ever been drunk?”  
  
“Of course not!” She took a bite of her fish, pausing a moment as the taste hit her. Cooking had been worth it to watch her blink, taking another few bites and smiling a bit. “This is really good.”  
  
“Fishing was one of the best ways to get a meal.” He told her simply. “Give me anything meat or freshly grown and I can make a damn good meal. I just don’t understand all this extra preparation ingredients laying around your kitchen.” He had looked through a half dozen packages and pouches located in the cabinets during his few times in the room and he already knew he wasn’t a fan of food in this time.  
  
“We’ll have to have you try some of the snack foods around. I think you’d end up being a big fan of a good amount of the American junk.”  
  
She smiled over at him and he found himself shrugging. It’d be interesting, if nothing else.  
  
They continued to eat and he couldn’t help himself.  
  
“You’ve never been interested in drinking?”  
  
“I’ve tried alcohol before. It’s not that impressive. If you want more though, you’re welcome to the cellar. I won’t be making much use of it in general.”  
  
“Have you used it in cooking?”  
  
She shook her head.  
  
Unbelievable.  
  
“It’s hard to believe, with all of this around you,” he motioned at the house, with its fine furniture and ornate décor. “You’ve never thought to use wine or drink it to add to the taste of your food.”  
  
“I’m not interested in spoiling myself,” she told him, as though that explained it at all.  
  
“It’s not about spoiling yourself, Rin. It’s about enjoying yourself.” He was out of his seat and closer to her side within moments, sliding his chair to be right next to hers rather than the across the table nonsense she had decided on.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Teaching the epitome of class about the importance of refined food.” He held up the glass for her, “take a good sip of this.”  
  
“Cu-“  
  
“Humor me. You can always smack me back to the other side of the table afterwards.”  
  
Her hand wrapped around his, glaring at him as she followed his direction. She didn’t sip though, rather opting to take a nice long swig.  
  
Novice drinkers, would they ever learn to ease themselves into the waters of drinking.  
  
“Okay. The taste is in your mouth, right?”  
  
“I can taste the liquor, yes.”  
  
He speared the fish onto her fork, holding it up for her. “Try the fish now.”  
  
“I know it tastes good.”  
  
“You’re supposed to be humoring me.”  
  
She just threw him one of those knowing smiles, eyes glinting in amusement as she took a bite.  
  
“It’s better this way, isn’t it?” He asked as she closed her eyes and continued to savor the food.  
  
“It’s just an effect of the alcohol. It’s not about whether it adds. Anything would taste better when someone is slightly more intoxicated,” she told him. But her eyes drifted to the drink, as though her mind was debating the logic she was spewing.  
  
“I don’t care either way. It adds flavor for me. I’ve learned to enjoy everything to the fullest. Nothing lasts.”  
  
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he found himself smacked. The woman was onto his lap, holding him by his armor. “Don’t say that.”  
  
He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t get the words out.  
  
She was clinging to him, glaring at him violently. “Don’t say that, Cu. Anything can last so long as people keep trying. It’s giving up like that which makes things end. As soon as you give up, it’s over.”  
  
Her hands loosened, remaining against his chest as she nodded to herself.  
  
“I won’t let you go back to the hell that you were stuck in. You’re never going back.”  
  
“Ah, lass…” The old term slight out like an old friend, making him chuckle as she glanced up at him. His lips pressed against hers, hand resting just under her chin to keep her there. She held onto him more, as though he were going to disappear beneath her fingers if she didn’t. Her body moved closer to his. Those sweet arms of hers were around him, pulling him close.  
  
She pulled back for air and he held up a hand, pressing it to those lips.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong. I will gladly do this all night, but we should talk about our tactic against Diarmuid.”  
  
“Who is Diarmuid?” She pulled back further, moving to climb into her seat when he stopped her. Given, he was more than happy to pause the advances for a conversation about enemies, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy touching her. Gods, no.  
  
“Diarmuid was this ethical, chivalrous fighter from south of where I lived.” His hands were enjoying those soft thighs as she nodded. Taking a sip of the wine, he continued, leaving the glass to be enjoyed by Rin.  
  
She took a sip herself, continuing to enjoy the meal he had prepared for her.  
  
“He wasn’t too popular where he was since he stole a woman away and hauled ass to the edge of Ireland, but for whatever reason, after a few years, I heard he died turning around and taking her back. I don’t know if he got annoyed with her begging or wanted to please her, but he ended up killed by her family. Pathetic honestly.”  
  
“He wanted to make her happy though, didn’t he?” Rin took another drink of the wine, pouring them both more. “I don’t see what the problem was with trying to make her happy.”  
  
“If you steal something, you should never return it. Theft, especially of women, was seen as unforgivable. In our time, lying and stealing meant you had no honor.”  
  
“So no one trusted him.” Rin nodded and continued to work on her wine glass as she finished eating. A slight pink tinge was coming to her cheeks as she continued to enjoy her liquor. “How do you think he’ll attack the house?”  
  
“I wouldn’t have expected him to break in.”  
  
He leaned back, moving his hands to Rin’s back. He slipped beneath her sweater, tracing idly along the small of her back. He could smell her soaps on the two of them and it was doing wonders to his mood. Given, it hadn’t been low, but it certainly had improved. Not even the talk of another man was bringing down.  
  
“Diarmuid most likely was caught by the maid when his master was in the house. Anyone with a brain wouldn’t have left outsiders alive.”  
  
“So he can be reasoned with. Do you think we could get him to tell us who his master is?”  
  
“Eh, I doubt it. Diarmuid was known for being loyal. That’s what made the rumor of his theft of Gainne so shocking to the areas around his home. He was one of those men that you could get to farm dirt and teach the children without having to be concerned about anything he would do while you were gone. He was trusted with jewels and precious valuables, but didn’t steal a thing.”  
  
“He seemed willing to talk to you though.”  
  
“People enjoy talking to their fellow countrymen, especially after time and distance from home.”  
  
“That’s true.” She tucked a lock of her hair behind one ear and set her wine glass down. “Do you think he could be in charge of where they’re hiding?”  
  
“Not a bit.”  
  
“So we’re still at square one.” She slid closer to him, wrapping her arms around him. She closed her eyes, no doubt thinking about the battle to come. The way she was, he was glad to leave out about the man’s additional luck with people. She knew what she needed to know.  
  
“If we wander out of the house, we may be able to meet with Diarmuid again.”  
  
“What makes you say that?”  
  
He shrugged, “Intuition. He was curious about the fight you had set up between myself and Saber. Given that he was watching one of you, the chances are strong that he will show up if we head out somewhere and wait for him.”  
  
“So we set up a meeting point and lead him there.”  
  
Back to rubbing her back, he just agreed silently with her idea. She rested her head against his shoulder and made a small sound.  
  
“We could make the meeting point the docks, but they’re a good distance from the house. Given that you’ve made the house a fortress, I would rather stay close by.”  
  
“The school is close.”  
  
“I don’t think the school can afford to repair any more damage caused by magecraft. The Mages Association had to donate a fair amount of money to them and to a few other places in town after the last Holy Grail War. Let’s just say, I’m pretty sure they own the town for the most part.”  
  
“Is that castle in the woods still standing?”  
  
“It’s most likely getting overgrown at this point.” The woman in his arms sighed, sitting up. “I suppose we may need to use the school. We could escape back to the house if things go south. That still leaves my concerns about you going berserker though.”  
  
“You’re sharing mana with me more now,” Cu Chulainn replied easily. “As long as we keep the connection strong, I have no doubt you can yank me out of my berserker tendencies.”  
  
“You seemed to also want to listen to me too,” Rin agreed.  
  
“I would listen to you even if it wasn’t something I wanted to hear.”  
  
Dark blues glanced up at him, twinkling slightly under the light of the chandelier in the room. That flushed face just smiled at him.  
  
“Oh,” he smirked, moving in close. “Careful, woman. I may not be able to hold myself back with you looking at me that way.”  
  
“What way is that?”  
  
Feisty. There wasn’t anything better than the daring look on her face as she leaned up and crossed her arms in front of him. Daring him to say what kind of look she was wearing on her face. As though she didn’t already know that she was wearing an expression of pure mischief.  
  
Cu Chulainn moved closer, unable to help himself. His hand drifted across her jawline, tangling in the hair just behind her ear.  
  
“Give me a moment and maybe I’ll tell you,” he breathed, moving in closer. He closed the distance, preparing to kiss her and stopping just short. His breath hit her face, but he held back. Those blue eyes flickered open, staring at him.  
  
“Is something wrong?”  
  
“Not a bit. I’m just enjoying watching you get ready to kiss me. Did you know your nose crunches up a bit when you have to tilt your head back.”  
  
She squawked, smacking his chest repeatedly. “I don’t do that! You asshole! We were having a moment!”  
  
“We’ve had a few of those.”  
  
She was beginning to try to climb out of his arms and he wrapped himself around her tight. “Oh no, hold on there, princess.”  
  
“Oh, just wait until-“  
  
“I was teasing! Geez, you take teasing so poorly!” He pulled her down to his face and kissed her, feeling her body melt back into his arms. She still hit him, make no mistake. This was Rin, master of the stubborn and annoying Red Archer. She wasn’t going to simply take the teasing and accept it due to a few tokens of affection. She hit him for another minute in fact, growling against his lips.  
  
“I don’t scrunch my nose.”  
  
“I find it endearing,” he replied back, earning another few hits.  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
Silence took over. Rin’s arms wrapping around his shoulders and legs around his waist. They moved from the table, walking through the house with Rin’s body firmly in place. He was fondling that ass as they ascended the stairs. Her fingers were pulling his hair in response.  
  
The walls in the hallway had never had a better purpose in his opinion, useful for propping her up and ruining her ability to think. Every time she opened that mouth to tell him to hurry up or just pick another room, he pressed her against a part of the wall and slipped his fingers between her panties and her center.  
  
Her breath hitched, body melting just a bit more.  
  
She mewled when she was close, her voice calling out his name like a siren’s call. With her touching him and doing this with him, it felt like the world snapped into place.  
  
Once again, their bedplay turned desperate, fast paced but long.  
  
Her scream shook the foundations.


	12. Phone Call

She didn’t wake up quick.

She didn’t want to move. 

There were arms around her body. There was a face pressed against her neck. She could feel her body tangled with his. When she moved, there was a soreness in her limbs. It only made the process of moving that much more difficult. 

The sun wasn’t where it was supposed to face though. The sun was supposed to lean towards her, not away. The room should have been cooler. Instead, it felt stuffy. 

“Cu, what time is it?” 

The man made a grunt, pulling her closer, kissing along her neck. 

“Cu- _uu_ ,” her voice wavered at the feel of teeth against her neck. 

“Let’s ignore the clock,” the man’s voice murmured. She could feel his hands moving along her body, tracing shapes along her skin. “Let’s focus on you for a while.” 

Her body was warming from where his touch had been. She could feel a soft sound escaping her lips. He knew how to touch. He knew how to make her yearn for more. 

It wasn’t like she was going to argue. 

The distraction made her body seem to forget about the pain. The feel of his hands felt like they belonged on her. She could feel a flush on her face. Her hands went to the pillow, trying to pull it closer to her face. 

“Now don’t go doin’ that,” Cu Chulainn purred. 

He held her wrists, holding them over her head. 

“I want to see your face when I take you again. I want to make a day of this.” 

Rin shivered, watching those red eyes just seem to dance as he pressed his lips to one of her breasts. 

“What a majesty,” he purred. “Look at you. Do you know what you sound like when you’re climaxing? Do you have any idea what your body feels like when you give me power and a little more of your heart?” 

No. 

No, she didn’t, but she was sure he would show her. 

“This is going to be nice,” he murmured. 

It was going to be addictive. 

She couldn’t really say no to him right now. She closed her eyes and all she could see was him looming over her. All she could feel was his arms around her. All she could taste was the salt of his skin and the taste of his cooking. 

The need to do more was on the edge of her senses. 

Her heart was picking up its pace. 

“Cu,” Rin placed her hands into his hair, brushing those blue locks back. 

“That’s the look I like,” he replied easily. “Just keep saying my name like that.” 

She was ready to say his name a dozen times more. The room was already so comfortable. They were in her space. He was hers in the first place. 

A sound echoed in the house. 

She sighed. 

“Stay with me,” Cu murmured. 

“It’s probably important,” Rin argued. 

Those red eyes were simply watching her, waiting. 

He wanted her to say fuck it. He wanted her to pull him in and just keep kissing him. If someone got worried and camt to check on her though…

“What are you thinking about, Rin?” 

She was thinking about what would happen if someone walked in to this. She was thinking about how much explaining she would have to do if someone saw her in bed with someone that was definitely a bit older than her. 

It was without hesitation that she was pushing away from him and standing up. 

Every facet of her body was begging to lay back down. 

“Rin-“

No, she needed to go. 

The phone was still ringing. 

“I need to get that,” she told him, gesturing towards the door. Her gaze averted, she motioned at him to move. “Just- get dressed and we’ll see about getting ready for the day.” 

Yeah. 

That was probably the best way to handle this. 

Allowing Cu Chulainn to get the best of her like this was only going to make things so much more difficult. She needed to ground herself. More importantly, with her legs shaking like they were, she needed to put a damper in their sex lives together. 

God, it hurt. 

Rin picked up the phone and put on her best awake and upbeat voice. 

“Tohsaka residence.” 

“Hello, Ms. Tohsaka.” 

Every fiber of her being was frozen at the voice. 

“I have called a few times. I didn’t take you for someone who would oversleep this deeply. It’s already so late in the afternoon.” 

Shit. 

Her eyes were going to where her room was, debating on how hard it would be to get Cu to come into the room and listen to this phone call with her. 

Diarmuid was continuing. 

“I was simply calling because I would like to arrange a time for us to meet.” 

“To meet?” 

The man chuckled, making her scowl at her hallway. 

“You must be tired. Forgive me.” 

“Where do you want to meet us?” 

“No, you are mistaken, Rin. When I said arrange a time for us, I meant you and me.” 

That was out of the question. She couldn’t put herself into danger like that. The threat that Diarmuid was alone would be enough to drive everyone mad. Along with that, putting herself into that kind of danger would mean that she would have no assurance that she would get her notes back and have her notes safe. The man’s master could have been summoning other familiars while she was talking to this lancer. 

No. 

She wouldn’t be that stupid. 

“Your servant is a threat,” Diarmuid told her. “You’ve seen him acting out. If we allow him to join us, there is no guarantee that I will leave safely. That is why I decided to call. You and I can arrange to meet somewhere public, somewhere where we can both feel comfortable and trust one another. We have no reason to mistrust one another, do we?” 

“What do you hope to gain from this?” 

“My master wants to know how your cypher works. Your notes are too cryptic. Summoning me was based off what one of my master’s workers figured out, but that person is gone and their wisdom is gone as well.” 

“Shame.” 

“It is.” 

Cu Chulainn was walking out of the bedroom, a selection of runes glowing around him as he had the lights flicker in response to him. Rin could feel herself almost drop the phone as she felt the mana coming off of him. While she had been half asleep and embarrassed before, she was definitely paying attention now. Every fiber of the man's body seemed to be giving off energy, like he was some kind of great sun rather than a servant. 

Once again, it seemed that he was undergoing a class change. 

The man caught sight of her and smirked, moving to her person and leaning in. 

“Tohsaka?” 

Diarmuid was waiting. 

“Please continue.” 

Cu was leaning in close. The fool didn’t seem to realize who was on the other end of the line. 

“I would like to meet with you possibly at the school.” 

“That’s out of the way.” 

“It is isolated, but familiar territory for you. I thought it might be somewhere where you could feel like you have the advantage.” 

Unless his master was a teacher or faculty member, in which case there were keys and areas less familiar to her that would be home for the man’s master. 

“Fine. When?” 

“What about tonight?” 

“I’m busy.” 

Uselessly. 

She would have to think of something to tell Shirou and Saber when she met up with them. Maybe she could find a way to simply cancel her plans early, claim to be tired or something. 

“Tomorrow night then,” the man offered. 

“Tomorrow night at 9?” 

“I will see you then. Don’t forget to leave Cu Chulainn somewhere a little ways away.” 

The phone went dead just as Rin felt the man touch her more. Her eyes closed, her body leaned back against the man behind him. 

“Caster…”

“Rin, you know I’m a lancer,” the man murmured. 

“You have runes all around you and you’re doing something to make me want this more than my rationale can argue. You’ve gone and changed classes again on me.” She wasn't going to mention that his power was so strong she was wondering whether or not his power would exceed her own.

She was too proud to think about that.

Her body was picked up, carried back towards their room. 

“It’s nothing,” Cu told her. 

“Cu-“ Rin pressed her hand to his chest, giving him the best look she could muster with him touching her and her body longing to forget the soreness in her again. 

But touching him and prolonging the soreness would only mean that the soreness would bother her again later. 

“Rin?” 

“I don’t know what time it is, but we should go visit Saber. We need to be out there looking for Diarmuid and his master as soon as possible.” 

“Oh?” 

She nodded. 

“I have a bad feeling about this whole thing,” she told him simply. "Let's take a shower and get ready to see Shirou and Saber." 

Perhaps making him wait would mean that his power would return to normal.


End file.
